Home / Tasks / Test chemical or physical characteristics of materials or products
In 2 of the 16 jobs that do this, AI or robots already show up on it, most often as robots doing it. In the other 14, there's no evidence yet. Jobs spend a median of 18m of an 8-hour shift on it, and about 1.8 million U.S. workers hold these jobs.
Every job that does this
Each job words the task its own way. Minutes are that job's estimate for a typical shift; the label is the evidence for that job's version.
| Job and its version of the task | Per shift | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System OperatorsCollect and test water and sewage samples, using test equipment and color analysis standards. | 1h 11m | No evidence yet |
| Chemical Plant and System OperatorsDraw samples of products and conduct quality control tests to monitor processing and to ensure that standards are met. | 33m | No evidence yet |
| Gas Plant OperatorsTest 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. | 23m | No evidence yet |
| Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and TendersExamine materials, ingredients, or products, visually or with hands, to ensure conformance to established standards. | 23m | No evidence yet |
| Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and TendersExamine or test samples of processed substances, or collect samples for laboratory testing, to ensure conformance to specifications. | 23m | No evidence yet |
| Stationary Engineers and Boiler OperatorsTest boiler water quality or arrange for testing and take necessary corrective action, such as adding chemicals to prevent corrosion and harmful deposits. | 18m | Robots |
| Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and TendersTest samples to determine viscosity, acidity, specific gravity, or degree of concentration, using test equipment such as viscometers, pH meters, or hydrometers. | 18m | No evidence yet |
| Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and TendersSample and test product characteristics such as specific gravity, acidity, and sugar content, using hydrometers, pH meters, or refractometers. | 18m | No evidence yet |
| Chemical Equipment Operators and TendersTest product samples for specific gravity, chemical characteristics, pH levels, concentrations, or viscosities, or send them to laboratories for testing. | 17m | No evidence yet |
| Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and TendersTest solutions used to process textile goods to detect variations from standards. | 12m | No evidence yet |
| Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and TendersDraw samples for laboratory analysis, or test solutions for conformance to specifications, such as acidity or specific gravity. | 12m | Robots |
| Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and GaugersPerform 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. | 11m | No evidence yet |
| Laundry and Dry-Cleaning WorkersIdentify articles' fabrics and original dyes by sight and touch, or by testing samples with fire or chemical reagents. | 7m | No evidence yet |
| Environmental Compliance InspectorsPerform laboratory tests on samples collected, such as analyzing the content of contaminated wastewater. | 6m | No evidence yet |
| Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and WeighersInspect or test raw materials, parts, or products to determine compliance with environmental standards. | 6m | No evidence yet |
| Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and TendersTest samples of materials or products to ensure compliance with specifications, using test equipment. | 6m | No evidence yet |
How to read this
This task type comes from O*NET's detailed work activities, which link similar tasks across jobs. A label applies to one job's version of the task: AI use comes from real AI conversations (Anthropic Economic Index) and robot evidence from deployments in real workplaces. "No evidence yet" may just mean the task is rare in the data. How we keep time.
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