{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/industrial-production-managers/", "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 Production Managers", "soc_code": "11-3051", "category": "Management", "us_employment": 246250, "median_annual_wage": 126060 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 52, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 9, "judgment_accountability": 15 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "The scheduling, capacity planning, yield reporting and materials-requirement work that fills your mornings is already inside the MES and ERP, but no system reads a bearing that sounds wrong, negotiates with a supplier who missed a resin delivery, or reorganizes three shifts around a fired operator — that split of roughly half codified, half floor-improvised is what puts this at 12 rather than 7 or 16.", "embodiment": "You are on the plant floor daily — gemba walks, changeover observation, standing in the noise at the point a line stops — but you are also half in an office running production meetings and reviewing OEE, so this sits at 12 instead of the 16+ earned by the maintenance techs and operators you supervise who have hands inside the equipment.", "liability_shield": "There is no license, no board, no PE stamp behind the title; the plant's OSHA citations, EPA permit violations and FDA/USDA findings land on the corporation and sometimes the plant manager, and while OSHA 1910 and process-safety rules can put a supervisor in a criminal referral for a fatality, that exposure comes from your position rather than any credential that makes you legally irreplaceable — hence 4, not 0.", "trust_premium": "Your leverage comes from ten years of knowing which shift lead actually reports scrap honestly, which vendor's promise dates are fiction, and which steward will escalate a grievance — real relational capital, but customers buy the product not you, and a competent successor rebuilds it in eighteen months, which is why this is 9 and not 14.", "judgment_accountability": "Release or hold a batch running at the edge of spec, run the line through a shift when a guard interlock is bypassed or shut it down and eat the delivery penalty, choose which order slips when a press dies Friday afternoon — these are unscripted, expensive, sometimes safety-critical calls you make in minutes and defend afterward, which is 15-level ownership short only of the 18+ where a signature carries personal legal weight." }, "rationale": "Production scheduling, throughput reporting, KPI dashboards, and inventory/materials planning are exactly what MES and planning software plus AI already do better than a human with a spreadsheet — that layer of the job is shrinking. What holds is the floor presence: walking the line when a machine goes down, deciding whether to run a marginal batch, handling a union grievance, owning a safety incident and a customer shipment miss. No license protects the role, so the moat is accountability and physical proximity to a messy plant, not regulation.", "outlook": "Headcount thins as scheduling and reporting software absorbs the analytical half, leaving fewer managers with wider spans of control and heavier accountability for safety, labor, and automation projects.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Named-individual accountability rules that attach to plant management specifically: OSHA's process safety management (29 CFR 1910.119) and EPA RMP audits already require a designated responsible person for covered chemical processes, and FSMA's Preventive Controls rule requires a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual to sign HARPC plans at food plants. If FDA/USDA or a state extends PCQI-style named-signer duties to broader manufacturing categories, or if a post-incident prosecution under OSHA 17(e) / state manslaughter law lands on a named production manager (as in the Bumble Bee Foods 2015 case), the personally-liable signature becomes structural rather than incidental.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer or customer-audit requirements that a named human management representative sign off: ISO 9001 and IATF 16949 already require a designated management representative, and automotive/aerospace customer audits (AS9100, PPAP approval) demand a human signature on process change and deviation authorizations. If OEM supplier agreements or property/casualty underwriters make AI-generated deviation approvals explicitly non-acceptable without countersignature, the signing role hardens.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift: as scheduling, MRP, and KPI reporting are absorbed by MES/APS and AI copilots, what remains is deviation authorization, marginal-batch and scrap calls, safety stand-downs, and grievance handling under an NLRA-covered contract. The residual role is almost entirely consequential calls under ambiguity, and the dimension rises without any new law.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Same two-tier shift raises the resistance of what is left: root-cause investigation on a novel failure, negotiating a recovery plan with a customer after a missed shipment, and reallocating a short-staffed crew mid-shift are not tasks current systems close. This is a composition effect, not a capability regression, and it is bounded — the tier is small.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Formalized on-site presence requirements: union contracts (e.g. UAW and USW master agreements) that specify a bargaining-unit supervisor physically present per shift, or OSHA/MSHA rules requiring a competent person on site during covered operations. If contract language or a standard names a physically present manager for confined-space, lockout-tagout, or hot-work authorization, floor presence becomes contractual rather than customary.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "trust_premium has no plausible route — buyers purchase parts to spec, not a human manager, and no customer pays a premium knowing a person rather than a system sequenced the line. Even with every lever above, the ceiling is roughly the high 60s: management layers thin as the coordination tier automates, and headcount per plant falls even where the remaining role gets harder to displace." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 171520, "wage": 100580 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 181310, "wage": 103380 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 185790, "wage": 105480 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 179570, "wage": 108790 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 192270, "wage": 103150 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 211710, "wage": 107560 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 222890, "wage": 116970 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 234380, "wage": 121440 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 246250, "wage": 126060 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 43.6, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "construction-managers", "title": "Construction Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 114990, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [ "Negotiation", "Operations Analysis", "Management of Financial Resources", "Management of Personnel Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }