Plan, direct, or coordinate the work activities and resources necessary for manufacturing products in accordance with cost, quality, and quantity specifications.
U.S. Workers
234,380
Median Salary
$121,440
10-Year Growth
+1.9%
Annual Openings
17,100
Typical entry: Bachelor's degree
14 of 14 tasks have some AI capability
Exposure Trend
This score reflects estimated AI technical capability for tasks in this occupation. It does not predict employment changes, and it does not account for company-specific constraints, regulation, or adoption barriers.
Develop or implement production tracking or quality control systems, analyzing production, quality control, maintenance, or other operational reports, to detect production problems.
AI: Fully automatable - By 2025 AI systems can design and implement production tracking and quality control solutions and analyze operational reports to reliably detect production problems and suggest corrective actions.
Prepare and maintain production reports or personnel records.
AI: Fully automatable - Automated data pipelines and AI reporting tools can fully prepare and maintain production reports and personnel records from integrated systems with high accuracy.
Coordinate or recommend procedures for facility or equipment maintenance or modification, including the replacement of machines.
AI: Fully automatable - AI‑driven predictive maintenance and maintenance‑management systems can recommend procedures, schedule and coordinate work, and trigger equipment replacement actions with minimal human intervention.
Maintain current knowledge of the quality control field, relying on current literature pertaining to materials use, technological advances, or statistical studies.
AI: Fully automatable - AI systems in 2025 can continuously monitor literature, patents, standards, and technical reports and produce timely, synthesized updates and alerts for quality‑control professionals.
Review processing schedules or production orders to make decisions concerning inventory requirements, staffing requirements, work procedures, or duty assignments, considering budgetary limitations and time constraints.
AI: Partial - As of 2025 AI can optimize schedules and recommend inventory, staffing, and procedure adjustments under budget/time constraints but human oversight is still needed for nuanced labor and trade‑off judgments.
Direct or coordinate production, processing, distribution, or marketing activities of industrial organizations.
AI: Partial - AI can coordinate and automate many routine production, processing, distribution, and marketing workflows, but cannot fully replace human managerial leadership and cross‑functional decision authority.
Review operations and confer with technical or administrative staff to resolve production or processing problems.
AI: Partial - AI can analyze operations and propose fixes, but resolving complex production problems often requires human technical discussions, negotiation, and tacit knowledge.
Hire, train, evaluate, or discharge staff or resolve personnel grievances.
AI: Partial - AI can assist hiring, training, evaluation, and flag issues, yet hiring/firing and grievance resolution demand human legal, ethical, and interpersonal judgement.
Set and monitor product standards, examining samples of raw products or directing testing during processing, to ensure finished products are of prescribed quality.
AI: Partial - AI can monitor quality, examine samples, and direct testing in real time, but setting product standards typically requires human strategic, regulatory, and contextual decisions.
Develop budgets or approve expenditures for supplies, materials, or human resources, ensuring that materials, labor, or equipment are used efficiently to meet production targets.
AI: Partial - AI can generate optimized budgets and expenditure recommendations to meet targets, but final budget approvals and accountability remain human responsibilities.
Initiate or coordinate inventory or cost control programs.
AI: Partial - AI can initiate, run, and optimize inventory and cost‑control programs (forecasting, reordering, costing), yet cross‑functional initiation and organizational coordination commonly require managerial sign‑off.
Review plans and confer with research or support staff to develop new products or processes.
AI: Partial - AI can analyze plans, generate design options, and synthesize technical input, but cannot fully replicate the human judgment, cross‑functional negotiation, and real‑time collaborative decision‑making required to lead product/process development.
Institute employee suggestion or involvement programs.
AI: Partial - AI can design program frameworks, aggregate and triage suggestions, and support engagement analytics, but instituting and sustaining employee involvement programs requires human leadership, culture change, and interpersonal facilitation.
Negotiate materials prices with suppliers.
AI: Partial - AI can prepare pricing analyses, generate negotiation strategies, and even execute algorithmic bid interactions, but high‑stakes supplier negotiation still relies on human relationship management and strategic discretion.