Contact suppliers to schedule or expedite deliveries and to resolve shortages, missed or late deliveries, and other problems.

“Contact suppliers to schedule or expedite deliveries and to resolve shortages, missed or late deliveries, and other problems.” is a core task performed by Procurement Clerks. Among the occupation's 19 rated tasks, workers place it 10th by importance (#10 most important). About 92% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures. in Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T2.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Track the status of requisitions, contracts, and orders. · importance 4.5
• Perform buying duties when necessary. · importance 4.4
• Prepare purchase orders and send copies to suppliers and to departments originating requests. · importance 4.4
• Calculate costs of orders, and charge or forward invoices to appropriate accounts. · importance 4.3
• Compare prices, specifications, and delivery dates to determine the best bid among potential suppliers. · importance 4.3
• Approve and pay bills. · importance 4.3
• Maintain knowledge of all organizational and governmental rules affecting purchases, and provide information about these rules to organization staff members and to vendors. · importance 4.2
• Determine if inventory quantities are sufficient for needs, ordering more materials when necessary. · importance 4.2
• Check shipments when they arrive to ensure that orders have been filled correctly and that goods meet specifications. · importance 4.2
• Prepare, maintain, and review purchasing files, reports and price lists. · importance 4.2
• Review requisition orders to verify accuracy, terminology, and specifications. · importance 4.1
• Respond to customer and supplier inquiries about order status, changes, or cancellations. · importance 4.1
• Monitor in-house inventory movement and complete inventory transfer forms for bookkeeping purposes. · importance 4.0
• Compare suppliers' bills with bids and purchase orders to verify accuracy. · importance 4.0

See all tasks on the Procurement Clerks page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-2535,
  title  = {Contact suppliers to schedule or expedite deliveries and to resolve shortages, missed or late deliveries, and other problems.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-2535}
}