Which jobs involve position raw materials on processing or production equipment?

6 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity, including Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders, Heat Treating Equipment Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators, Potters, Manufacturing.

What kind of work is this?

It is physical, manual and inspection work. O*NET files it under the work activity "Handling and Moving Objects" (element 4.A.3.a.2).

Position raw materials on processing or production equipment

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.

Key facts about this work activity
How automatable	Barely automatable
Kind of work	Physical, manual and inspection work
Jobs that do it	6 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 6 occupations that perform it.

Smooth out products in bins, pans, trays, or conveyors, using rakes or shovels.
Position stock in furnaces, using tongs, chain hoists, or pry bars.
Position and clamp stock on tables, conveyors, or carriages, using hoists, guides, stops, dogs, wedges, or wrenches.
Position stock along cutting lines, or against stops on beds of scoring or cutting machines.
Place sensitized paper in frames of projection printers, photostats, or other reproduction machines.
Position balls of clay in centers of potters' wheels, and start motors or pump treadles with feet to revolve wheels.

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.

Our pickBuy nothing

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.

Research an account firstGenerate a one-page account brief before every call so you spend the meeting on what matters, not what Google already knows.Sales · 8 steps Answer inbound leads in a minuteAcknowledge every form submission in under sixty seconds and ask one qualifying question while you sleep.Sales · 9 steps

Who does this work

6 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.

Work that goes with it

O*NET groups these under “Position workpieces or materials on equipment”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.

Related work activities
Activity	Jobs
Mount attachments or tools onto production equipment	37
Mount materials or workpieces onto production equipment	36
Feed materials or products into or through equipment	21
Adjust fabrics or other materials during garment production	9
Maneuver workpieces in equipment during production	6

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.