Sort materials or products for processing, storing, shipping, or grading
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Processing Information (4.A.2.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Separate meats and byproducts into specified containers and seal containers.
- Disassemble sizing mills removed from rolling lines, and sort and store parts.
- Examine completed workpieces for defects, such as chipped edges or marred surfaces and sort defective pieces according to types of flaws.
- Sort and count articles removed from dryers, and fold, wrap, or hang them.
- Count, sort, or stack finished workpieces.
- Separate materials or products according to size, weight, type, condition, color, or shade.
- Stack and sort cut material for packaging, further processing, or shipping, according to types and sizes of material.
- Grade, classify, or sort products according to sizes, weights, colors, or other specifications.
- Sort rough diamonds into categories based on shape, size, color, and quality.
- Stock and sort product for packaging or filling machine operation, and replenish packaging supplies, such as wrapping paper, plastic sheet, boxes, cartons, glue, ink, or labels.
- Count, sort, and weigh processed items.
- Separate products according to weight, grade, size, or composition of materials used to produce them.
- Examine and sort into lots articles to be cleaned, according to color, fabric, dirt content, and cleaning technique required.
- Sort, grade, weigh, and inspect products, verifying and adjusting product weight or measurement to meet specifications.
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 analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
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
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Cutters and Trimmers, Hand
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Gem and Diamond Workers
- Helpers--Production Workers
- Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers
- Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers
- Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters and Trimmers
- Packaging and Filling Machine Operators and Tenders
- Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood
- Semiconductor Processing Technicians
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Sort materials or products”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Sort mail | 16 |
| Sort forestry or agricultural materials | 4 |
| Sort materials or products | 4 |
| Sort recyclable materials | 3 |
| Sort materials or objects for processing or transport | 2 |
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.