AI exposure: Helpers--Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Workers
Help installation, maintenance, and repair workers in maintenance, parts replacement, and repair of vehicles, industrial machinery, and electrical and electronic equipment. Perform duties such as furnishing tools, materials, and supplies to other workers; cleaning work area, machines, and tools; and holding materials or tools for other workers.
Reading this score
computedAt 7.9% of weighted task load, Helpers--Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Workers sits at the 10th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 87.5% 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 16 tasks it averages 2.81 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 Order new parts to maintain inventory, at 80.0%. The least is Prepare work stations for use by mechanics and repairers, at 0.0%. A gap of 80.0% 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 installation, maintenance and repair occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 13.8% across the group's 50 roles, with 37 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 16 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 14 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 | 0.50 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.81 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.25 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.68 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.95 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.04 | 0-3 |
Task by task
16 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order new parts to maintain inventory. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 3.62 | exposed |
| Tend and observe equipment and machinery to verify efficient and safe operation. | 26.7% | 23.3% | 50.0% | 3.93 | exposed |
| Examine and test machinery, equipment, components, and parts for defects to ensure proper functioning. | 12.5% | 12.5% | 75.0% | 4.03 | untouched |
| Adjust, maintain, and repair tools, equipment, and machines, and assist more skilled workers with similar tasks. | 7.5% | 5.0% | 87.5% | 3.64 | untouched |
| Diagnose electrical problems and install and rewire electrical components. | 4.6% | 7.9% | 87.5% | 3.78 | untouched |
| Install or replace machinery, equipment, and new or replacement parts and instruments, using hand or power tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.04 | untouched |
| Adjust, connect, or disconnect wiring, piping, tubing, and other parts, using hand or power tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.90 | untouched |
| Clean or lubricate vehicles, machinery, equipment, instruments, tools, work areas, and other objects, using hand tools, power tools, and cleaning equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.85 | untouched |
| Hold or supply tools, parts, equipment, and supplies for other workers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.79 | untouched |
| Disassemble broken or defective equipment to facilitate repair and reassemble equipment when repairs are complete. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.76 | untouched |
| Position vehicles, machinery, equipment, physical structures, and other objects for assembly or installation, using hand tools, power tools, and moving equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.73 | untouched |
| Transfer tools, parts, equipment, and supplies to and from work stations and other areas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.71 | untouched |
| Apply protective materials to equipment, components, and parts to prevent defects and corrosion. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.60 | untouched |
| Design, weld, and fabricate parts, using blueprints or other mechanical plans. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.02 | untouched |
| Assemble and maintain physical structures, using hand or power tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.90 | untouched |
| Prepare work stations for use by mechanics and repairers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.29 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
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.