AI exposure: Conveyor Operators and Tenders
Control or tend conveyors or conveyor systems that move materials or products to and from stockpiles, processing stations, departments, or vehicles. May control speed and routing of materials or products.
Reading this score
computedAt 16.2% of weighted task load, Conveyor Operators and Tenders sits at the 26th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 73.0% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 23 tasks it averages 2.67 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Record production data such as weights, types, quantities, and storage locations of materials,..., at 73.3%. The least is Join sections of conveyor frames at temporary working areas, and connect power units, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within transportation and material moving occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 24.3% across the group's 52 roles, with 38 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 23 tasks, 4 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 18 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.88 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.67 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.46 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.54 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.02 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.06 | 0-3 |
Task by task
23 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record production data such as weights, types, quantities, and storage locations of materials, as well as equipment performance problems and downtime. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.69 | exposed |
| Inform supervisors of equipment malfunctions that need to be addressed. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 3.57 | exposed |
| Read production and delivery schedules, and confer with supervisors, to determine sorting and transfer procedures, arrangement of packages on pallets, and destinations of loaded pallets. | 37.5% | 25.0% | 37.5% | 3.70 | exposed |
| Contact workers in work stations or other departments to request movement of materials, products, or machinery, or to notify them of incoming shipments and their estimated delivery times. | 26.7% | 23.3% | 50.0% | 3.45 | exposed |
| Manipulate controls, levers, and valves to start pumps, auxiliary equipment, or conveyors, and to adjust equipment positions, speeds, timing, and material flows. | 25.0% | 12.5% | 62.5% | 4.30 | untouched |
| Observe conveyor operations and monitor lights, dials, and gauges to maintain specified operating levels and to detect equipment malfunctions. | 20.0% | 17.5% | 62.5% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Press console buttons to deflect packages to predetermined accumulators or reject lines. | 18.3% | 6.7% | 75.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Observe packages moving along conveyors to identify packages, detect defective packaging, and perform quality control. | 16.7% | 33.3% | 50.0% | 3.92 | assisted |
| Operate elevator systems in conjunction with conveyor systems. | 15.0% | 10.0% | 75.0% | 3.80 | untouched |
| Stop equipment or machinery and clear jams, using poles, bars, and hand tools, or remove damaged materials from conveyors. | 9.2% | 3.3% | 87.5% | 4.21 | untouched |
| Operate consoles to control automatic palletizing equipment. | 6.2% | 6.2% | 87.5% | 3.56 | untouched |
| Collect samples of materials or products, checking them to ensure conformance to specifications or sending them to laboratories for analysis. | 6.2% | 6.2% | 87.5% | 3.30 | untouched |
| Measure dimensions of bundles, using rulers, and cut battens to required sizes, using power saws. | 4.2% | 2.1% | 93.8% | 3.07 | untouched |
| Load, unload, or adjust materials or products on conveyors by hand, by using lifts, hoists, and scoops, or by opening gates, chutes, or hoppers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.13 | untouched |
| Position deflector bars, gates, chutes, or spouts to divert flow of materials from one conveyor onto another conveyor. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.84 | untouched |
| Clean, sterilize, and maintain equipment, machinery, and work stations, using hand tools, shovels, brooms, chemicals, hoses, and lubricants. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.73 | untouched |
| Distribute materials, supplies, and equipment to work stations, using lifts and trucks. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.97 | untouched |
| Thread strapping through strapping tools and secure battens with strapping to form protective pallets around extrusions. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Weigh or measure materials and products, using scales or other measuring instruments, or read scales on conveyors that continually weigh products, to verify specified tonnages and prevent overloads. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.74 | untouched |
| Affix identifying information to materials or products, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.41 | untouched |
| Move, assemble, and connect hoses or nozzles to material hoppers, storage tanks, conveyor sections or chutes, and pumps. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.23 | untouched |
| Repair or replace equipment components or parts such as blades, rolls, and pumps. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.22 | untouched |
| Join sections of conveyor frames at temporary working areas, and connect power units. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | – | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 6 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.