Order construction or extraction materials or equipment
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can propose the plan, chase the replies and keep the record current. To actually change anything it needs write access to a calendar or work system, and a person still owns the tradeoffs when two plans collide.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Scheduling, planning and resource control |
| Jobs that do it | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring and Controlling Resources (4.A.4.c.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Order or requisition materials or supplies.
- Purchase or rent equipment for solar energy system installation.
- Select and order lumber or other required materials.
- Select and order tile and other items to be installed, such as bathroom accessories, walls, panels, and cabinets, according to specifications.
- Perform business management duties, such as maintaining records or files, preparing reports, or ordering supplies or equipment.
- Select and purchase tools or finishes for surfaces to be covered, considering durability, ease of handling, methods of application, and customers' wishes.
- Determine materials needed to complete the job and place orders accordingly.
- Requisition materials, using warehouse requisition or release forms.
- Requisition tools and equipment, select type and size of pipe, and collect and transport materials and equipment to work site.
- Requisition or order tools and equipment.
- Maintain inventory levels, ordering new supplies as necessary.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for scheduling, planning and resource control, and what it costs.
Scheduling is a connector problem rather than an intelligence one, and $9 a month of Make covers both the calendar and the chasing. An agent platform priced per seat adds nothing you would notice here.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Carpenters
- Electricians
- Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
- First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers
- Helpers--Electricians
- Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
- Painters, Construction and Maintenance
- Plasterers and Stucco Masons
- Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners
- Solar Energy Installation Managers
- Tile and Stone Setters
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Purchase goods or services”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.