Pour materials into or on designated areas
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 | 13 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 13 occupations that perform it.
- Signal truck driver to position truck to facilitate pouring concrete, and move chute to direct concrete on forms.
- Mix, pour, or spread concrete, using portable cement mixers.
- Fill water tanks and check tanks, pipes, and fittings for leaks.
- Mop or pour hot asphalt or tar onto roof bases.
- Pour specified amounts of chemical solutions into stripping tanks.
- Mix and pour concrete around bases of posts, or tamp soil into postholes to embed posts.
- Mix or pour concrete into forms to encase waste material for disposal.
- Dump, spread, and tamp asphalt, using pneumatic tampers, to repair joints and patch broken pavement.
- Pour water into wells, or pump water or slush into wells to cool drill bits and to remove drillings.
- Insert, pack, and pour explosives, such as dynamite, ammonium nitrate, black powder, or slurries into blast holes; then shovel drill cuttings, admit water into boreholes, and tamp material to compact charges.
- Dig holes, set forms, and mix and pour concrete into forms to make foundations for wood or steel derricks.
- Backfill piping trenches to protect pipes from damage.
- Precast terrazzo blocks in wooden forms.
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
13 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers
- Construction Laborers
- Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas
- Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
- Fence Erectors
- Geothermal Technicians
- Hazardous Materials Removal Workers
- Helpers--Painters, Paperhangers, Plasterers, and Stucco Masons
- Highway Maintenance Workers
- Roofers
- Roustabouts, Oil and Gas
- Solar Thermal Installers and Technicians
- Terrazzo Workers and Finishers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Perform general construction or extraction activities”. 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.