Polish materials, workpieces, or finished products
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 14 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 14 occupations that perform it.
- Refinish and polish piano cabinets or cases to prepare them for sale.
- Remove scratches and polish roll surfaces, using polishing stones and electric buffers.
- Smooth and polish flat and contoured surfaces of parts or tools, using scrapers, abrasive stones, files, emery cloths, or power grinders.
- Clean and polish shoes.
- Grind, sand, clean, or polish objects or parts to correct defects or to prepare surfaces for further finishing, using hand tools and power tools.
- Clean, treat, buff, or polish finished items, using grinders, brushes, chisels, and cleaning solutions and polishing materials.
- Smooth soldered joints and rough spots, using hand files and emery paper, and polish smoothed areas with polishing wheels or buffing wire.
- Remove excess metal or porcelain and polish surfaces of prostheses or frameworks, using polishing machines.
- Polish artificial limbs, braces, or supports, using grinding and buffing wheels.
- Set dials and start machines to polish lenses or hold lenses against rotating wheels to polish them manually.
- Buff and wax the finished paintwork.
- Clean and polish engraved areas.
- Smooth surfaces of carvings, using rubbing stones.
- Polish aircraft exteriors.
- Clean and polish metal items and jewelry pieces, using jewelers' tools, polishing wheels, and chemical baths.
- Prepare workpieces for etching or engraving by cutting, sanding, cleaning, polishing, or treating them with wax, acid resist, lime, etching powder, or light-sensitive enamel.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
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.
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
14 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Aircraft Service Attendants
- Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Cutters and Trimmers, Hand
- Dental Laboratory Technicians
- Etchers and Engravers
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand
- Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers
- Medical Appliance Technicians
- Musical Instrument Repairers and Tuners
- Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians
- Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Shoe and Leather Workers and Repairers
- Stone Cutters and Carvers, Manufacturing
- Tool and Die Makers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Smooth surfaces of objects or equipment”. 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.