{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/industrial-engineering-technologists-and-technicians/",
  "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": "Industrial Engineering Technologists and Technicians",
    "soc_code": "17-3026",
    "category": "Engineering",
    "us_employment": 75570,
    "median_annual_wage": 66120
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 36,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 9,
    "embodiment": 11,
    "liability_shield": 2,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 8
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Time studies, cycle-time calculations, yield tabulations, layout CAD updates and standard-work documentation are already generated from MES/PLC and machine-vision data, but the parts that require standing at station 6 to see the operator's undocumented workaround, or running a fixture trial across three shifts to find out why it fails on second shift, still need a person — so roughly half the task list holds, not more.",
    "embodiment": "You are on the floor with a tape measure, stopwatch, and calipers doing takt observations, staging pilot cells, and moving conveyor and bench positions during changeovers, but it is a controlled indoor plant with fixed equipment and a maintenance crew doing the actual rigging — physical, not a field trade in weather or confined space.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state license or PE stamp attached to this role; the process change you spec goes out under the plant engineering manager's or PE's approval, and the ISO/AS9100 documentation you write is signed off by quality management, so nothing in your work product is legally yours to defend.",
    "trust_premium": "Line supervisors and operators will only give you the real reasons a station runs slow after you've been on their shift long enough to be trusted, which is worth something — but the deliverable is a validated line balance or cost-per-unit figure that management judges on the numbers, and a new tech can inherit the study.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide which station to time, which of two layout options to pilot, and whether an observed cycle is representative or an outlier — real calls with cost consequences — but they run inside standard-work methodology, lean/Six Sigma protocol and existing routings, and a capital or safety-relevant change goes up to engineering for the decision."
  },
  "rationale": "The analytical half of this job — compiling production data, calculating cycle times and yields, building layout drawings from measurements, writing work instructions and process documentation, and preparing cost and efficiency reports — is exactly the pattern-and-text work current AI plus MES/sensor data does cheaply. What holds is the plant-floor half: walking the line, timing actual operators, catching the informal workarounds that never appear in the data, and physically piloting a fixture or layout change. There is no license or signature requirement here, so the moat is presence and shop-floor credibility, not regulation.",
  "outlook": "Headcount likely flattens or shrinks as reporting and time-study math get absorbed by MES analytics, while the surviving roles are the techs who live on the floor and commission real equipment changes.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "If MES/digital-twin systems absorb the report-writing, cycle-time math and layout drafting tier, the residual role becomes time-study validation against actual operator behavior, root-cause investigation of variance the data can't explain, and physical pilot runs — a genuinely two-tier job where the surviving tier is observation-and-judgment heavy",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "If line changeovers shift further toward high-mix/low-volume and reshored small-batch production (semiconductor fab tooling, medical device, defense suppliers under DoD reshoring contracts), more of the work is physically re-fixturing, re-balancing and re-timing unstable stations rather than optimizing a stable line",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "If OSHA's ergonomics/musculoskeletal rulemaking or a state analogue (e.g. California's Cal/OSHA indoor heat and ergonomic standards) requires a named, qualified person to document and attest to workstation ergonomic assessments, the ergonomics-assessment portion of this role gains a signature requirement; similarly if machine-safeguarding risk assessments under ANSI B11.0 / ISO 12100 become an audited, individually-signed deliverable in OEM contracts",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If aerospace/medical quality regimes (AS9100, FDA 21 CFR 820 process validation, IATF 16949 PPAP) increasingly name an individual technologist as the person who owns process validation and change-control sign-off — and audits trace nonconformance back to that name — the role owns consequential calls with traceable ownership",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Ceiling is low. Trust premium has no realistic route: the buyer is an internal manufacturing manager who wants cost per unit down and has no preference for a human analyst. Liability gains, if any, attach to the PE or the quality manager above this role rather than to the technician; the credential here is an associate degree or certificate, not a license, and no state board is moving to license industrial engineering technicians."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 67110,
        "wage": 56550
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 62980,
        "wage": 57320
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 62030,
        "wage": 60220
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 66560,
        "wage": 61210
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 73020,
        "wage": 62610
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 73410,
        "wage": 64790
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 75570,
        "wage": 66120
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 12.6,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "engineers-all-other",
      "title": "Engineers, All Other",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 48,
      "median_wage": 122930,
      "overlap": 86,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operations Analysis"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "mechanical-engineers",
      "title": "Mechanical Engineers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 48,
      "median_wage": 104110,
      "overlap": 85,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operations Analysis",
        "Installation",
        "Judgment and Decision Making",
        "Mathematics"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "electrical-engineers",
      "title": "Electrical Engineers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 52,
      "median_wage": 120630,
      "overlap": 78,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Active Learning",
        "Writing",
        "Management of Financial Resources",
        "Speaking"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}