{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/production-planning-and-expediting-clerks/",
  "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": "Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerks",
    "soc_code": "43-5061",
    "category": "Office",
    "us_employment": 390160,
    "median_annual_wage": 59650
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 27,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 6,
    "embodiment": 7,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 7
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Releasing work orders off an MRP run, reconciling on-hand counts to BOM requirements, pulling open-PO aging reports, and sending delivery-date follow-ups are already native ERP functions or one prompt away, which is why this sits at 6 rather than mid-band — the exception handling that resists is a slice of the week, not the backbone of the job.",
    "embodiment": "A 7 reflects the genuine floor time — physically walking the line to see why the machine is down, counting a bin that the system says is wrong, checking a staging area before you promise a ship date — but you spend most of the shift at a terminal in a plant office, not in the uncontrolled outdoor or field conditions that push a score into the teens.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no license, no state board, and no certification anyone actually checks for this role — an APICS/CPIM credential helps you get hired and raises your pay, but nothing legal stops the plant from having a supervisor or a system release the schedule instead of you, which is what puts this at 1 rather than 5.",
    "trust_premium": "The 6 is earned by the specific supplier expediters and line leads who take your call and move your part ahead of someone else's, but the customer never knows your name and the relationship is with the plant's purchase volume more than with you personally, so it doesn't approach product-status.",
    "judgment_accountability": "When two orders compete for the same short part and you decide which customer slips, that is real discretion — but it typically runs inside priority rules, a customer tier list, or an escalation to the production manager who owns the consequence, which keeps this at 7 rather than in the range where the ambiguous call and its fallout are both yours."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — running MRP/ERP schedules, checking inventory against work orders, chasing late purchase orders, updating production status reports, and emailing suppliers about delivery dates — is exactly the structured data reconciliation and templated correspondence that ERP automation plus LLMs now handle end to end. What resists is the part that happens off-system: walking the floor to see why line 3 actually stopped, working a supplier contact who owes you a favor to pull a shipment forward, and making the call on which order slips when two customers both scream. That tier is real but it is a fraction of the hours, and no license protects the rest.",
  "outlook": "Expect headcount to fall meaningfully over ten years as ERP autoschedules and AI handles supplier follow-up, with the survivors reclassified upward into planner, buyer-planner, and materials analyst roles that own decisions rather than data.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: once ERP agents (SAP Joule, Oracle Fusion planning agents, Microsoft Dynamics autonomous supply-chain agents) absorb MRP runs, PO chasing and status reporting, the residual role is exception management — diagnosing why a work order stalled, negotiating expedite fees, resequencing under allocation. The job title survives only where a plant has enough unmodeled variability (job shop, engineer-to-order, aerospace low-volume) that exceptions dominate. Watch for job postings retitled 'supply chain analyst' or 'materials expeditor' with fewer heads and higher pay bands.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Growth of the floor-walking half of the role: plants where the clerk is also the physical materials chaser (kitting verification, WIP counts, tag reconciliation on lines with poor barcode discipline) keeps a body requirement. This rises only if RFID/computer-vision WIP tracking stays unfinished, which it largely has outside high-end automotive and semiconductor.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Named-human allocation decisions under shortage: in defense and aerospace, DPAS-rated order priority (DPAS Rating Authority, 15 CFR 700) requires a person to accept or reject rated orders and document the resequencing; similar in FDA-regulated drug-shortage allocation. If prime contractors push rated-order and allocation sign-off down to the planning desk with named accountability, the role owns consequential calls rather than executing them.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Records-integrity signature in regulated production: FDA 21 CFR Part 11 / Part 211 batch-record and EU Annex 11 regimes already require a named human to review and sign production records; if pharma and medical-device firms require a human planner to countersign AI-generated schedule and material-disposition changes that touch the batch record, a small but real personal sign-off attaches. Also watch AS9100/ITAR export-control sign-off on supplier communications.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a higher trust premium — no buyer pays extra knowing a human sent the expedite email, and the counterparty is increasingly another firm's agent. Even with every lever, this occupation stays low: the liability and judgment gains concentrate in regulated aerospace/pharma/defense plants, which are a minority of the 390k, and the gains come with headcount collapse in the rest. A higher score for the surviving job is not a higher number of jobs."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 336000,
        "wage": 46670
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 350150,
        "wage": 47580
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 370380,
        "wage": 48260
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 362090,
        "wage": 49640
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 367200,
        "wage": 48040
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 389920,
        "wage": 50630
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 393980,
        "wage": 53900
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 385000,
        "wage": 57770
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 390160,
        "wage": 59650
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 16.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}