Home Use Cases Work Insights About Contact
Back to Our Work

How an Enterprise Technology Company Built Defect Grading with a Human Verdict on Every Held Unit

Operations1
Open the walkthrough

Five-Step AI Workflow with Human Oversight

Each step shows the workspace, what the AI completed, and what still needs human review.

Steps 3, 4 and 5 need a person. Step 3 is waiting for approval right now. Click it to open the full walkthrough.

Estimates are directional and based on stated assumptions. All names, organizations, and identifying details have been anonymized in accordance with our confidentiality agreements.

The Transformation

How an Enterprise Technology Company Built Defect Grading with a Human Verdict on Every Held Unit

Before
A person used to walk the line checking each camera was still aimed and in focus.
A person used to inspect one unit in ten at a bench, and the other nine went in the box unlooked at.
After
every unit photographed sharp, held if nobody can name it
every frame scanned, every finding named and graded
clean ships, bad pulls, borderline waits for you
the run found, the floor paged, the line is your call
the shift counted, and what to catch earlier tomorrow
Executive Summary

Every unit that comes down the line, from the moment it passes the cameras to the moment the shift is counted. The agents photograph every unit, find and grade every defect, clear the clean ones and pull the bad ones, and hand a person only the units the catalogue cannot call, the alerts only a person can answer, and the rule changes only a person may accept. Five stations, run as a loop: the calls a person makes at station 3 and the thresholds accepted at station 5 are what station 2 scans against tomorrow.

What Was Broken

A person used to walk the line checking each camera was still aimed and in focus
The real cost
A person used to inspect one unit in ten at a bench, and the other nine went in the box unlooked at.

What We Built

Five stations and 10 subagents. Each subagent carries its own tasks and its own refusal.

A4
Frame Sweep
Collect every frame off the four line cameras as each unit passes
A3
Camera Check
Check each camera's focus and lighting against yesterday's reference shot
A4
Defect Scan
Scan every frame of every unit, not a sample of them
A3
Severity Sort
Grade each finding cosmetic or functional off the component it sits on
A3
Verdict Caller
Clear a unit whose frames all came back clean or cosmetic only
A2
Hold Desk
Queue each held unit with its four frames side by side
A4
Pattern Track
Track each pulled unit back to the machines and the hour it passed through
A3
Alert Desk
Raise an alert when a defect repeats past the rule set for it
A4
Shift Report
Count the shift's units, pulls, holds and alerts, split by defect and by hour
A2
Threshold Proposal
Propose the threshold change that would have caught today's run earlier

How It Runs

1

Frame Capture

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents photograph every unit off the four line cameras, match each frame to the unit's serial, retake anything blurred or glared before the unit leaves the camera, and hold a unit whose serial nobody could read. Nothing waits on a person here. A held unit sits at the end of the belt with its frames kept, never passed on as somebody else's.

2

Defect Detection

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents scan every frame of every unit, locate each finding down to the component it sits on, grade it cosmetic or functional, and flag a finding the catalogue has no example of rather than forcing the nearest label. Nothing waits on a person here. A finding that matches nothing keeps its frames attached and travels to the verdict station as an open question, not a guess.

3

Unit Verdict

A person answers here

Agents clear the units whose frames came back clean, pull the ones carrying a functional finding, and queue the borderline ones for a person, each beside the catalogue examples that decide it. This is where a person works. Everything else exists so that five units, not nine hundred, reach this screen.

4

Line Watch

A person answers here

Agents trace every pulled unit back through the machines it passed, watch the pull rate against the last thirty shifts, and raise an alert when the same defect arrives in a run. The alert stands until a person answers it. This is where a person decides. The agents can find the run and page the floor; stopping a press is not theirs to call.

5

Shift Close

A person answers here

Agents count the shift's units, pulls, holds and alerts, trace what the day's run cost, and propose the threshold changes that would have caught it earlier, with what each change would wrongly pull stated beside what it catches. A person accepts or rejects each one. This is where a person decides. How the scan grades a finding and when an alert pages the floor are rules, and an agent does not change its own rules quietly.

Where a Person Decides

Step 3, Unit Verdict. Call the 5 held units, the frames are queued side by side. Say where unit 8178's picture belongs in the catalogue, pass or fail. a borderline unit is your call.
Step 4, Line Watch. Answer the 07:58 alert, nine units, one press. Decide whether press 3 runs while rework checks the die. only a person stops the line.
Step 5, Shift Close. Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Say whether your 8113 call goes into the catalogue as its pass example. the rules are yours to accept.

Operating Model

This changes how work flows through the team.

Role
Responsibility
Unit Verdict owner
Call the 5 held units, the frames are queued side by side. Say where unit 8178's picture belongs in the catalogue, pass or fail. a borderline unit is your call.
Line Watch owner
Answer the 07:58 alert, nine units, one press. Decide whether press 3 runs while rework checks the die. only a person stops the line.
Shift Close owner
Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Say whether your 8113 call goes into the catalogue as its pass example. the rules are yours to accept.
Frame Capture, when it goes wrong
Look here only if rework says a unit arrived with no pictures.
Defect Detection, when it goes wrong
Look here only if rework disputes where a finding was placed.

What Transfers, What Must Be True

What transfers
A person is in the loop wherever a unit the model cannot call needs a verdict, a line might stop, or the rules the agents run on change. Three stations refuse to proceed on their own, Unit Verdict, Line Watch and Shift Close, and those are the three a person carries. Everywhere else the agents photograph, scan, grade and trace, and reach you only when the call is yours to make.
Unit Verdict stops for a person, and a borderline unit is your call.
Line Watch stops for a person, and only a person stops the line.
Shift Close stops for a person, and the rules are yours to accept.
Every subagent says what it will not do. 10 of them do.
What must be true in your environment
The agent can read the systems your records already live in. This one reads 17.
Somebody owns Unit Verdict and has time for it.
Somebody owns Line Watch and has time for it.
Somebody owns Shift Close and has time for it.

Failure Modes

What breaks this pattern:

✗ Frames That Belong to Nobody

When no camera reads the serial, the frames enter the pipeline anyway. A defect gets recorded against a unit nobody can find, and the bad unit ships under a clean record.

✗ Every Finding Gets a Label

The scanner meets a mark it has never seen and files it under the nearest known defect. The new failure hides inside an old category, and nobody goes looking for it.

✗ The Timeout Ships the Unit

A held unit sits past its window and the line lets it go. The units that most needed a person are exactly the ones that ship without one.

✗ The Alert Clears Itself

The alert fires, nobody answers, and after a while the system marks it resolved. The floor learns that alerts go away on their own, so nobody answers the next one either.

Directional Outcomes

What the agent counts, and the station that counts it.

These counts are the tallies from one monitored run of the agents. They are not monthly or annual totals.

Frames quality-checked
Counted at Frame Capture
2,100,000
Units that left the line unphotographed
Counted at Frame Capture
0
Camera faults handed to a person
Counted at Frame Capture
14
Units scanned, every frame
Counted at Defect Detection
512,000
Defects the rework bench found that the scan had passed
Counted at Defect Detection
0
Findings with no catalogue match, sent to a person
Counted at Defect Detection
61
Our measurement policy: We do not publish precise ROI without baseline methodology. Every figure above carries its basis.

What Runs Where

Every step names the subagent that does the work, the record it writes, the thing that raises a question for a person, and what it is allowed to touch. This is drawn from the source, not from a diagram somebody kept in sync by hand.

1Frame Capture
subagentcapture-and-check
writesvision/frames/<serial>/<cam>.json
raiseshold-unreadable-serial
may touchvision/frames/**, vision/held/**, the cameras read-only
2Defect Detection
subagentscan-and-grade
writesvision/findings/<serial>.json
raisesno-catalogue-match
may touchvision/findings/**, vision/frames/** read-only
3Unit Verdict
GATE
subagentcall-the-unit
writesvision/verdicts/<serial>.json
raisesawait-your-call
may touchvision/verdicts/**, vision/findings/** read-only
4Line Watch
GATE
subagentwatch-the-line
writesvision/alerts/<alert-id>.json
raisesalert-awaiting-answer
may touchvision/alerts/**, vision/verdicts/** read-only
5Shift Close
GATE
subagentclose-the-shift
writesvision/reports/shift-<date>.json, vision/thresholds/proposed/<id>.json
raisesaccept-threshold-change
may touchvision/reports/**, vision/thresholds/proposed/**, the history read-only

Stack

Every system this agent reads or writes.

System
Read at
Stations
the alert log
Shift Close
1 of 5
the alert rules
Line Watch
1 of 5
the belt's serial scanner
Frame Capture
1 of 5
the day's verdict record
Shift Close
1 of 5
the defect catalogue
Defect Detection
2 of 5
the four line cameras
Frame Capture
1 of 5
the image store
Frame Capture
2 of 5
the line's machine map
Line Watch
1 of 5
the pack line
Unit Verdict
1 of 5
the plant dashboard
Shift Close
1 of 5
the rework bench queue
Unit Verdict
1 of 5
the shift lead's pager
Line Watch
1 of 5
the threshold rules
Shift Close
1 of 5
the unit's build record
Defect Detection
1 of 5
the verdict queue
Unit Verdict
1 of 5
the verdict record
Line Watch
1 of 5
yesterday's reference shots
Frame Capture
1 of 5
Next Step

Want to see if this pattern fits your computer vision?

No build commitment·Real samples, not a demo·Estimate in writing