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How a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Board Inspection with Human Decisions on Every Failed Board

Operations1
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Five-Step AI Workflow with Human Oversight

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

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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 a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Board Inspection with Human Decisions on Every Failed Board

Before
A person used to walk the line each morning and eyeball the camera feeds.
An inspector used to pull one tray in ten and check it by hand.
The shift lead used to be paged on every failed board, one page each.
After
every board photographed, every frame checked before it counts
every board called clean or failed, and the unsure ones held
failed boards off the line, and the right handset told once
every diverted board cased and queued, waiting on your call
where the shift's boards ended, and what to inspect differently
Executive Summary

Every board the line makes, from the moment it passes the cameras to the moment somebody decides what happens to the ones that fail. A person used to pull one tray in ten and check it by hand; the agents photograph every board, inspect every one, take the failed ones off the line, and bring a person only the boards where the call is theirs. Five stations, run as a loop: what the bench releases today is what the inspection holds differently tomorrow.

What Was Broken

A person used to walk the line each morning and eyeball the camera feeds
An inspector used to pull one tray in ten and check it by hand
The real cost
The shift lead used to be paged on every failed board, one page each.

What We Built

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

A4
Frame Capture
Capture three frames of every board off the conveyor trigger, one per camera
A3
Camera Watch
Check each camera's focus and exposure every hour against the reference target
A4
Defect Finder
Search each frame for every component the board's build record says it carries
A3
Board Verdict
Match the marks across a board's three frames, so one scratch is one defect
A4
Alert Desk
Divert each failed or held board to the bench lane before the next station touches it
A3
Line Watch
Track the failure count per line station against the shift's own baseline
A1
Case Builder
Draft a one-line case for each diverted board, marks and close-ups on top
A3
Bench Record
Record each call, who made it, and the frames on screen when they made it
A4
Shift Tally
Check every board that entered the shift against where it ended
A2
Threshold Proposal
Propose the threshold or library change today's bench releases argue for

How It Runs

1

Line Capture

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents photograph every board at three frames each, check each frame for blur and glare before inspection sees it, re-shoot while the board is still in reach, and hold any board no camera can photograph usably. Nothing waits on a person here. A board with no usable frame is held as uninspected, never passed as clean.

2

Defect Inspection

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents search each frame for every component the build record says the board carries, mark what is missing, bridged, misplaced or scratched, merge three frames into one verdict per board, and hold the verdicts the frames do not agree on. Nothing waits on a person here. A call the frames do not support goes to the bench as a question, never onto the line as a verdict.

3

Line Alerting

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents divert each failed or held board to the bench lane before the next station touches it, route each alert to the one handset that owns it, merge repeats on the same cause into one alert, and escalate anything nobody acknowledges. Nothing waits on a person here. The diverter takes the board off the line, and a person hears about it on the handset they already carry.

4

Bench Disposition

A person answers here

Agents build the case for each diverted board, the deciding frame on top, the past boards that carried the same defect beside it, and a recommendation where the past calls all point one way. Then they wait on the call. This is where a person works. Everything upstream exists so that 57 boards, not 8,400, reach this bench.

5

Threshold Review

A person answers here

Agents close the shift: where every board ended, where the defects landed board by board, and the threshold or library changes today's bench calls argue for, each shown with what it would cost as well as save. A person accepts or rejects each change. What the line fails a board for is not something an agent moves quietly.

Where a Person Decides

Step 4, Bench Disposition. Call board 5521 and board 4471, the frames are up. Clear the 8 scuffed corners once the carrier has been looked at. scrap and rework are your calls.
Step 5, Threshold Review. Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Say whether the worn carrier closes the corner-scuff pattern. the thresholds are yours to move.

Operating Model

This changes how work flows through the team.

Role
Responsibility
Bench Disposition owner
Call board 5521 and board 4471, the frames are up. Clear the 8 scuffed corners once the carrier has been looked at. scrap and rework are your calls.
Threshold Review owner
Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Say whether the worn carrier closes the corner-scuff pattern. the thresholds are yours to move.
Line Capture, when it goes wrong
Look here only when maintenance asks which camera to service first.
Defect Inspection, when it goes wrong
Look here only when a board you trust keeps failing.
Line Alerting, when it goes wrong
Look here only when an alert reached the wrong handset.

What Transfers, What Must Be True

What transfers
A person is in the loop wherever a board leaves the plant or the line's rules change. Two stations refuse to proceed on their own, Bench Disposition and Threshold Review, and those are the two a person carries. Everywhere else the agents photograph, inspect, divert and alert, and reach a person only when the call is theirs to make.
Bench Disposition stops for a person, and scrap and rework are your calls.
Threshold Review stops for a person, and the thresholds are yours to move.
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 18.
Somebody owns Bench Disposition and has time for it.
Somebody owns Threshold Review and has time for it.

Failure Modes

What breaks this pattern:

✗ The unphotographed board ships anyway

A board with no usable frame is a board nobody looked at. Without the hold, it counts as inspected and goes to the box.

✗ New marks get old names

A mark that matches nothing in the library gets the nearest name anyway. A new defect enters the record as a known one, and nobody goes to look.

✗ Alerts expire instead of escalating

An alert nobody acknowledged times out on its own. The line keeps running with a problem no person has seen.

✗ The agent ships and scraps alone

The call on what leaves the plant moves from a person to the agent. A wrong call reaches a customer with nobody's name on it.

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 Line Capture
1,940,000
Boards inspected off a frame too poor to call
Counted at Line Capture
0
Cameras flagged for a technician
Counted at Line Capture
6
Boards inspected
Counted at Defect Inspection
640,000
Confirmed defects passed as clean
Counted at Defect Inspection
0
Boards held for the bench instead of called
Counted at Defect Inspection
1,240
Alerts routed
Counted at Line Alerting
5,200
Line stops on a false alarm
Counted at Line Alerting
0
Alerts escalated to the floor lead
Counted at Line Alerting
38
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.

1Line Capture
subagentframe-capture
writesvision/frames/<board-id>/
raiseshold-failing-camera
may touchvision/frames/**, the camera feeds read-only
2Defect Inspection
subagentinspect-board
writesvision/verdicts/<board-id>.json
raiseshold-low-confidence
may touchvision/verdicts/**, vision/frames/** read-only
3Line Alerting
subagentalert-route
writesvision/alerts/<alert-id>.json
raisesescalate-unacknowledged
may touchvision/alerts/**, vision/verdicts/** read-only
4Bench Disposition
GATE
subagentbench-case
writesvision/bench/<board-id>.md
raisesawait-disposition
may touchvision/bench/**, everything else read-only
5Threshold Review
GATE
subagentshift-close
writesvision/rules/proposed/<rule-id>.json, vision/reports/shift-<date>.json
raisesaccept-threshold-change
may touchvision/rules/proposed/**, vision/reports/**, the history read-only

Stack

Every system this agent reads or writes.

System
Read at
Stations
the alert rules
Line Alerting
1 of 5
the andon board
Line Alerting
1 of 5
the bench queue
Defect Inspection
2 of 5
the board build records
Defect Inspection
1 of 5
the camera maintenance log
Line Capture
1 of 5
the conveyor trigger
Line Capture
1 of 5
the defect library
Defect Inspection
2 of 5
the diverter
Line Alerting
1 of 5
the floor handsets
Line Alerting
1 of 5
the frame store
Line Capture
3 of 5
the quality log
Bench Disposition
2 of 5
the reporting dashboard
Threshold Review
1 of 5
the rework bench
Bench Disposition
1 of 5
the scrap record
Bench Disposition
1 of 5
the shift record
Threshold Review
1 of 5
the shift roster
Line Alerting
1 of 5
the three line cameras
Line Capture
1 of 5
the threshold table
Threshold Review
1 of 5
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