{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/first-line-supervisors-of-mechanics-installers-and-repairers/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers", "soc_code": "49-1011", "category": "Trades", "us_employment": 617500, "median_annual_wage": 79860 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 62, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 15, "liability_shield": 7, "trust_premium": 11, "judgment_accountability": 16 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "At 13 the split is roughly even: dispatch boards, PM interval tracking, warranty submission, tech productivity scorecards and parts reorder points are already running themselves inside CMMS and dealer DMS platforms, but nobody has automated walking out to a bay to confirm a tech misread a live-data freeze frame, road-testing a repair before it goes back to a customer, or deciding which of four jobs the one guy who can weld aluminum takes first — that's why it isn't 8, and the volume of screen work is why it isn't 17.", "embodiment": "15 reflects that the supervisor's day is spent in the shop or on the customer's roof, lift bay, boiler room or job site — lockout/tagout verification, torque and leak checks, confined-space and fall-protection sign-offs, riding out with a tech on a comeback — in environments with jacked-up vehicles, live refrigerant and energized panels rather than a controlled test cell, though the desk hours for scheduling and payroll keep it out of the high teens.", "liability_shield": "7 rather than 3 because many of these supervisors hold real tickets — EPA 608, ASE Master or L1, state HVAC/electrical journeyman or contractor licenses, DOT brake and annual-inspection certification — and in some jurisdictions the shop's inspection or contractor license runs through a named individual; it isn't 14 because the majority path to foreman is seniority and diagnostic skill, and when a repair fails the claim generally lands on the employer's garagekeeper's coverage, not on the supervisor personally.", "trust_premium": "11 because the fleet manager, plant maintenance chief or property owner calls this specific foreman by name after the third failed repair and often keeps their business because of him, and the crew stays for the supervisor as much as the shop — but the work is largely institutional, jobs get routed by contract and location, and a competent replacement foreman keeps most accounts.", "judgment_accountability": "16 is earned by the release decision: signing off that a brake job, gas furnace, crane or aerial lift is safe to return to service, deciding whether an intermittent fault warrants tearing down further or sending it out, judging when a technician is unqualified or impaired for a task, and being the person interviewed when OSHA arrives after an injury or when a released unit fails in service — high-stakes calls made on incomplete diagnostic evidence, with procedures that guide but do not decide." }, "rationale": "The paperwork half of this job — work-order routing, shift scheduling, parts requisitions, warranty claims, PM compliance logs, productivity reports — is exactly what scheduling software plus LLMs now handle, and fleet/maintenance platforms are already absorbing it. The half that holds is standing in the bay or on the site: verifying a tech's diagnosis on a stubborn intermittent fault, deciding whether a unit is safe to release, handling a customer escalation, and being the name on the OSHA and comeback investigations. Modal worker here is a shop or field-service foreman who came up as a technician; the credential is experience, not a license, which limits the shield.", "outlook": "By 2035 the clipboard-and-scheduling portion of the role is largely software-run and spans widen — fewer supervisors covering more techs — but the person who walks the bay, verifies the fix, and owns the safety call is still on payroll.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Expansion of named-competent-person / signatory requirements into more maintenance domains: FAA Part 145 already requires a certificated Repair Station supervisor and an RII (Required Inspection Item) inspector to sign; FTA/state DOT bus and rail maintenance rules and elevator/boiler inspection codes name a licensed supervisor. If a state adopts mandatory heavy-vehicle inspection programs (as several have debated post-CVSA out-of-service data) that require a named supervisor's signature on brake and steering releases, or if EPA 608/609 refrigerant recovery enforcement pushes to a supervisor countersignature, the shield rises for those subsectors.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "OSHA 'competent person' and lockout/tagout designations becoming a documented, individually-named role in insurer-required safety programs, with workers' comp carriers and general liability underwriters conditioning premiums on a named human supervisor sign-off for confined space, energized work, and lift/crane operations — already appearing in construction OCIP requirements.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "As diagnostic AI and telematics take over routing and fault-code triage, the residual decision — release-to-service on an ambiguous intermittent fault, or pulling a unit from a revenue run — concentrates on the supervisor, and post-incident NTSB/OSHA/plaintiff discovery names that person. Task-mix shift, no new law needed.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Two genuine tiers exist here. If maintenance platforms (Fleetio, UpKeep, ServiceTitan) absorb scheduling, warranty claims, and PM logs, the remaining job is verification-in-the-bay, tech coaching, and comeback root-cause — which raises task_resistance as a share of the job even as absolute headcount falls. Watch for shops where the foreman no longer touches the WO system at all.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: in high-stakes independent shops and specialty/vintage/heavy equipment work, customers ask for a specific named foreman to inspect. This is real but small and does not scale to fleet or dealer-network work, where the buyer is a procurement department indifferent to who signed.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "The binding constraint is that the credential is experience, not a license — absent a genuine journeyman-supervisor licensure regime (which no US state body is currently moving toward for general mechanical trades), the shield stays capped in the low teens. Realistic ceiling around 72-75, and the gains come from concentration of accountability onto fewer supervisors rather than from protecting the current 617,500 headcount." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 460370, "wage": 64780 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 471820, "wage": 66140 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 485700, "wage": 67460 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 475000, "wage": 70240 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 526240, "wage": 71260 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 559050, "wage": 73140 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 589880, "wage": 75820 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 600680, "wage": 78300 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 617500, "wage": 79860 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 34.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }