Test chemical or physical characteristics of materials or 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 | 16 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials (4.A.1.b.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 16 occupations that perform it.
- Perform laboratory tests on samples collected, such as analyzing the content of contaminated wastewater.
- Identify articles' fabrics and original dyes by sight and touch, or by testing samples with fire or chemical reagents.
- Test solutions used to process textile goods to detect variations from standards.
- Test boiler water quality or arrange for testing and take necessary corrective action, such as adding chemicals to prevent corrosion and harmful deposits.
- Collect and test water and sewage samples, using test equipment and color analysis standards.
- Draw samples of products and conduct quality control tests to monitor processing and to ensure that standards are met.
- Test gas, chemicals, and air during processing to assess factors such as purity and moisture content, and to detect quality problems or gas or chemical leaks.
- Perform tests to check the qualities and grades of products, such as assessing levels of bottom sediment, water, and foreign materials in oil samples, using centrifugal testers.
- Test product samples for specific gravity, chemical characteristics, pH levels, concentrations, or viscosities, or send them to laboratories for testing.
- Examine samples to verify qualities such as clarity, cleanliness, consistency, dryness, or texture.
- Examine materials, ingredients, or products, visually or with hands, to ensure conformance to established standards.
- Examine or test samples of processed substances, or collect samples for laboratory testing, to ensure conformance to specifications.
- Inspect or test raw materials, parts, or products to determine compliance with environmental standards.
- Draw samples for laboratory analysis, or test solutions for conformance to specifications, such as acidity or specific gravity.
- Sample and test product characteristics such as specific gravity, acidity, and sugar content, using hydrometers, pH meters, or refractometers.
- Test samples to determine viscosity, acidity, specific gravity, or degree of concentration, using test equipment such as viscometers, pH meters, or hydrometers.
- Test samples of materials or products to ensure compliance with specifications, using test equipment.
- Check arriving materials to ensure that they match purchase orders, submitting discrepancy reports as necessary.
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
16 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Chemical Plant and System Operators
- Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Environmental Compliance Inspectors
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders
- Gas Plant Operators
- Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers
- Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers
- Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
- Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and Tenders
- Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Test characteristics of materials or 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.