Team Assembler
Collaborative robots are real, commercially deployed, and genuinely growing in this occupation — but the pattern across every independently verifiable case found is consistent: cobots work alongside a human assembler, not instead of one.
We have not ingested real-world usage data for this occupation yet. We show a band only where genuine data exists, rather than estimate one.
What a team assembler actually does
Team assemblers build finished products on a production line, typically rotating through several different stations rather than doing one fixed task all day. The daily work includes reading work orders and blueprints to confirm a build matches specification, performing quality checks on parts and finished products as they move down the line, and operating assembly machinery and hand tools to fit components together correctly.
Assemblers rotate through all the tasks required in a given production process — one hour might mean fitting a subassembly, the next inspecting for defects, the next packaging a finished unit for shipment — which means the job demands broad, cross-trained competence rather than narrow repetition. More experienced team assemblers often help determine work assignments and procedures for a shift, train newer employees on job procedures, and coordinate with the rest of the line when something goes wrong mid-process.
Increasingly, this also means working directly alongside collaborative robots (cobots) that handle repetitive or physically taxing sub-tasks — coordinating handoffs and monitoring the robot's output rather than being replaced by it.
Why it reads this way
Collaborative robots are real, commercially deployed, and genuinely growing in this occupation — but the pattern across every independently verifiable case found is consistent: cobots work alongside a human assembler, not instead of one. The International Federation of Robotics' own curated case-study page lists deployments like Coral Maker, Bakisto, Mech Mind, Raymath, and Brandt A/S, and none of them report a headcount reduction — all describe productivity or output gains with a human still present at the station.
BMW's Spartanburg plant is a representative example: a cobot and a worker install insulation together, uncaged, side by side, with the human still doing the judgment-heavy part of the fit.
The widely-cited case of Xiamen Runner Industrial Corp deploying 64 collaborative robots across roughly 10 applications could only be traced back to Universal Robots' own marketing content — no independent journalism or third-party audit of the actual staffing impact was found, so it's treated here as illustrative color, not proof of displacement. No government license applies to this occupation.
Skills this role draws on
We don't yet have task-by-task time-share data for this occupation, so we can't show which specific tasks carry the exposure score above. This is the real skill set instead.
Typical salary range (USD)
$33,280–$64,880
Average: $44,650/yr
Range source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Team Assemblers (51-2092.00), 2025 release
Average source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Team Assemblers (51-2092.00), 2025 release, accessed via O*NET OnLine / My Next Move — direct bls.gov access returned HTTP 403 during research
Related careers
Head-to-head comparisons
Team Assembler scores 82/100 (Safe band). Collaborative robots are real and commercially deployed, but every independently verifiable case found — IFR's own curated deployments, BMW Spartanburg's insulation-install cobot — pairs a cobot with a human assembler rather than replacing one; none report headcount reduction. The widely-cited Xiamen Runner 64-cobot case traces only to vendor marketing, with no independent audit of staffing impact, so it's treated as illustrative rather than proof of displacement. No government license applies to this occupation.
This is a researched judgment (checklist v1.2), not a statistical measurement — it sits alongside, not instead of, the structural exposure signal above. Next scheduled review: 2027-02-11.
Data sources & methodology
Salary data: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Team Assemblers (51-2092.00), 2025 release. Min/max figures represent the 10th–90th percentile annual wage range across the United States. Average figure sourced separately: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Team Assemblers (51-2092.00), 2025 release, accessed via O*NET OnLine / My Next Move — direct bls.gov access returned HTTP 403 during research.
Automation Risk Score: Based on O*NET occupational analysis (51-2092.00) evaluating task complexity, physical requirements, social intelligence, and environmental variability. Methodology based on research from Frey & Osborne (Oxford, 2017).
Growth projections: Little or no change (2024-2034), based on BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.