COOKED
The core loop — read a print, set stops and speeds, load and unload parts, drill or bore to spec, gauge with calipers and micrometers — is exactly what CNC machining centers, automatic tool changers, and pallet loaders were built to absorb, and the modal worker here is tending rather than programming. Physical presence in a shop keeps a floor under this job, but it's a controlled, repeatable environment, which is where industrial automation is strongest and where a robot cell pays back fastest. No licensure, no client relationship, and very little discretion beyond scrapping a bad part; employment is already down to under 5,000 nationally, which tells you where the trend went.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Setting a drill jig, indicating a workpiece true, changing a dull twist drill and holding a bore to a few tenths still needs a person on a manual or semi-auto machine, but the print-to-part loop is fully proceduralized and a CNC machining center with a tool changer does the same hole pattern unattended — a 9 rather than a 4 because deep-hole work, odd fixturing and short-run job-shop parts still get set up by hand.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. You are standing at the machine loading castings, clamping in a vise, blowing chips, flooding coolant and pulling parts to the surface plate — but it's a bolted-down machine on a shop floor with known part geometry, not a job site, which is why this sits at 13 and not at the 17-plus of a field millwright.
No licence, no signature requirement. Nothing you drill requires you to hold a licence or sign for it; NIMS credentials and blueprint-reading certificates help you get hired but the shop's quality department and the customer's PPAP paperwork carry the liability, so there is no legal barrier stopping a robot from doing the operation.
Anonymous artifact production. The parts leave in a tote with a job number on them and the customer never learns who ran the operation; a 2 only reflects that a foreman knows which operator can hold tolerance on a tricky setup, which is reputation inside one building, not a client relationship.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. Your calls are bounded by the setup sheet and the feed-and-speed chart — pull a chipped drill, re-indicate a part that's running out, scrap one that's oversize, flag the inspector — real decisions with real consequences for scrap cost, but every one of them has a defined right answer, which is why this is a 4 and not a 10.
Model Makers, Metal and Plastic EXPOSED
Maintenance Workers, Machinery EXPOSED
Sheet Metal Workers SAFE
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