Reshape metal workpieces to established specifications
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 | 8 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 8 occupations that perform it.
- Cut, trim, file, bend, or smooth parts to ensure proper fit and clearance.
- File, lap, and buff parts to fit, using hand and power tools.
- Straighten warped or bent parts, using sledges, hand torches, straightening presses, or bulldozers.
- Activate shears and grinders to trim workpieces.
- Activate machine start-up switches to grind, lap, hone, debar, shear, or cut workpieces, according to specifications.
- Grind, cut, buff, or bend edges of workpieces to be joined to ensure snug fit, using power grinders and hand tools.
- Prepare metal surfaces or workpieces, using hand-operated equipment, such as grinders, cutters, or drills.
- File grooved, contoured, and irregular surfaces of metal objects, such as metalworking dies and machine parts, to conform to templates, other parts, layouts, or blueprint specifications.
- Repair products by dismantling, straightening, reshaping, and reassembling parts, using cutting torches, straightening presses, and hand tools.
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
8 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Aircraft Structure, Surfaces, Rigging, and Systems Assemblers
- Electromechanical Equipment Assemblers
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand
- Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters
- Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Shape materials to create products”. 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.