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How a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Unit Inspection That Pulls Every Flagged Unit Before Packing

Operations1
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Six-Step AI Workflow with Human Oversight

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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 Unit Inspection That Pulls Every Flagged Unit Before Packing

Before
A person used to walk the line each morning checking every camera by eye.
A person used to pull one tray in ten and check it by eye.
A person used to match units to paper travelers at shift end.
A person used to watch the reject bin and ring the line lead.
After
every unit filmed, every frame good enough to judge from
every mark found and named in the plant's own words, or marked unsure
one unit, one record, and the line watched for repeats
flagged units off the line, one alert per problem, phones only when the rules say
every held unit with its case built, waiting on your call
Executive Summary

Every unit the line makes, from the moment it passes the cameras to the moment it ships, gets reworked, or gets scrapped. The agents film every unit, call every defect they can stand behind, pull every flagged unit off the line before packing, and hand a person only the units where the frames do not settle it. A person used to check one tray in ten; now every unit is looked at, and the person's eyes go where the cameras are unsure. Six stations, run as a loop: a threshold accepted at station 6 tonight is the line station 2 calls against tomorrow, and a camera flagged at station 1 is serviced before tomorrow's first unit.

What Was Broken

A person used to walk the line each morning checking every camera by eye
A person used to pull one tray in ten and check it by eye
A person used to match units to paper travelers at shift end
The real cost
A person used to watch the reject bin and ring the line lead.

What We Built

Six stations and 13 subagents. Each subagent carries its own tasks and its own refusal.

A4
Frame Capture
Capture every unit off both cameras as it passes the fixture
A3
Camera Watch
Check each camera's sharpness and exposure against its own last week
A4
Defect Finder
Find the unit in each frame and outline it against the reference shape
A3
Defect Grader
Name each mark from the plant's own defect catalogue, never from its own words
A4
Line Follower
Follow each unit from camera to camera on its belt position
A3
Pattern Watch
Compare each defect against the hour and the shift behind it
A3
Divert Desk
Route every called, unsure or disputed unit into the hold lane before packing
A3
Alert Desk
Send each alert the rules already name, to the people the rules already name
A1
Case Builder
Draft a one-line case for each held unit: the call, where the mark sits, which station held it
A3
Precedent Pull
Search past bench decisions for units like this one
A3
Bench Record
Record each decision, who made it, and the frame on screen when it was made
A4
Shift Count
Count what the line made, what the lane held and what the bench decided, by defect and by fixture
A2
Threshold Proposal
Propose the threshold change that today's releases ask for

How It Runs

1

Line Capture

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents film every unit from both cameras as it passes, match each frame to its belt position, retake a bad frame while the unit is still in view, and flag a camera whose frames are going soft. Nothing waits on a person here. A camera going soft is flagged to maintenance before its frames go bad.

2

Defect Calling

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents find each unit in its frames, outline every mark, gap and misplaced part, name each one from the plant's own defect catalogue, and mark the unit unsure when the frames do not carry the call. Nothing waits on a person here. An unsure call goes to the hold bench with its frames, never to a guess.

3

Unit Tracking

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents follow each unit from camera to camera on its belt position, join its frames and calls into one record, and watch the shift for repeats no single unit shows. Nothing waits on a person here. A repeat that clears the rule becomes an alert at the next station, with its units attached.

4

Divert & Alert

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents route every called, unsure or disputed unit into the hold lane before packing, send the alerts the rules already name to the people the rules already name, and keep one problem to one alert. Nothing waits on a person here. The unit reaches the lane and the alert reaches a phone, and a line stop is handed to a person, never made.

5

The Hold Bench

A person answers here

Agents build the case for every held unit: the deciding frame with the mark on it, the call, the three closest past decisions, and a recommendation where the frames support one, left blank where they do not. This is where a person works. Scrap, rework and release are a person's words, and the bench never empties itself.

6

Shift Close

A person answers here

Agents count what the line made, what the lane held and what the bench decided, draw the heatmap of where defects landed, and propose the threshold changes today's releases ask for, with what each would wrongly pull written beside what it saves. A person accepts or rejects each change. Where the sureness line sits is the plant's word for what ships, and an agent never moves it quietly.

Where a Person Decides

Step 5, The Hold Bench. Decide the 12 waiting units; the missing-screw nine are one decision. Say why on every release; that sentence is what tunes the cameras tonight. nothing leaves the lane without your word.
Step 6, Shift Close. Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Take the fixture heatmap to tomorrow's shift huddle. the sureness line moves on your word.

Operating Model

This changes how work flows through the team.

Role
Responsibility
The Hold Bench owner
Decide the 12 waiting units; the missing-screw nine are one decision. Say why on every release; that sentence is what tunes the cameras tonight. nothing leaves the lane without your word.
Shift Close owner
Accept or reject the two proposed changes. Take the fixture heatmap to tomorrow's shift huddle. the sureness line moves on your word.
Line Capture, when it goes wrong
Look here only if maintenance asks which camera to service first.
Defect Calling, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a defect name does not match what rework finds.
Unit Tracking, when it goes wrong
Look here only if rework says two units came back with swapped records.

What Transfers, What Must Be True

What transfers
A person is in the loop wherever a unit leaves the hold lane or the sureness line moves. Two stations refuse to proceed on their own, The Hold Bench (station 5) and Shift Close (station 6), and those are the two a person carries. Everywhere else the agents film, call, track, divert and alert, and reach you only when the frames do not settle it.
The Hold Bench stops for a person, and nothing leaves the lane without your word.
Shift Close stops for a person, and the sureness line moves on your word.
Every subagent says what it will not do. 13 of them do.
What must be true in your environment
The agent can read the systems your records already live in. This one reads 21.
Somebody owns The Hold Bench and has time for it.
Somebody owns Shift Close and has time for it.

Failure Modes

What breaks this pattern:

✗ A blurred photo passes bad units

A lens picks up dust and the frames stop being judgeable. Without the hold rule, the scorer treats the blur as a clean unit and ships everything the camera cannot see.

✗ Unsure calls become quiet passes

The model is 60 percent sure a weld is bad, and the system rounds that up to a pass. The hardest defects sit in that middle band, so rounding hides exactly the units a person needed to see.

✗ Software stops the production line

An agent sees a defect run and halts the line on its own authority. One false alarm costs an hour of output, and after two of them the crew starts ignoring every alert the system sends.

✗ Units leave the lane unrecorded

A unit comes off the lane and nobody writes down who cleared it or why. Six weeks later a customer returns it, and the plant cannot show whether it was rechecked, reworked, or waved through.

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.

Units filmed
Counted at Line Capture
208,000
Units judged off a blurred frame
Counted at Line Capture
0
Camera faults flagged to maintenance
Counted at Line Capture
7
Units judged
Counted at Defect Calling
296,000
Passed units the bench later found defective
Counted at Defect Calling
0
Units it would not call, sent to the bench
Counted at Defect Calling
870
Units tracked
Counted at Unit Tracking
351,000
Units lost between cameras
Counted at Unit Tracking
0
Records held apart, sent to the bench
Counted at Unit Tracking
140
Units diverted
Counted at Divert & Alert
8,600
Called units that reached packing
Counted at Divert & Alert
0
Line-stop calls handed to a person
Counted at Divert & Alert
2
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
subagentline-capture
writesframes/<unit-id>/
raisescamera-out-of-service
may touchframes/**, the camera feeds read-only
2Defect Calling
subagentdefect-calling
writesunits/<unit-id>/verdict.json
raisesunsure-call
may touchunits/**, frames/** read-only
3Unit Tracking
subagentunit-tracking
writesunits/<unit-id>/trail.json
raisesunit-lost-between-cameras
may touchunits/**, line/history/** read-only
4Divert & Alert
subagentdivert-alert
writeslane/<unit-id>.json, alerts/<alert-id>.json
raisesline-stop-recommended
may touchlane/**, alerts/**, units/** read-only
5The Hold Bench
GATE
subagentbench-case
writesbench/<unit-id>/case.md
raisesawait-your-decision
may touchbench/**, everything else read-only
6Shift Close
GATE
subagentshift-close
writesthresholds/proposed/<change-id>.json, reports/shift-<date>.json
raisesaccept-threshold-change
may touchthresholds/proposed/**, reports/**, the history read-only

Stack

Every system this agent reads or writes.

System
Read at
Stations
past bench decisions
The Hold Bench
1 of 6
the alert rules
Divert & Alert
1 of 6
the belt sensor
Line Capture
2 of 6
the bench decisions
Shift Close
1 of 6
the camera service log
Line Capture
1 of 6
the defect heatmap
Shift Close
1 of 6
the divert gate on the line
Divert & Alert
1 of 6
the frame store
Line Capture
2 of 6
the hold lane
Divert & Alert
2 of 6
the line history
Unit Tracking
1 of 6
the phones and screens on the floor
Divert & Alert
1 of 6
the plant's defect catalogue
Defect Calling
2 of 6
the reporting dashboard
Shift Close
1 of 6
the rework queue
The Hold Bench
1 of 6
the shift log
Unit Tracking
1 of 6
the shift record
Shift Close
1 of 6
the thresholds
Shift Close
1 of 6
the trained defect model
Defect Calling
1 of 6
the two line cameras
Line Capture
1 of 6
the unit record
Defect Calling
1 of 6
the unit records
Unit Tracking
2 of 6
Next Step

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