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How a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Unit Inspection That Learns from Technician Corrections

Operations1
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Seven-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 Learns from Technician Corrections

Before
A person used to walk the line each morning checking the cameras were aimed and lit.
A person used to inspect one unit in ten under a lamp, and the rest went past unlooked at.
A person used to pull failed units off the belt by hand, when they were caught at all.
A person used to compile the shift numbers from three spreadsheets after close.
After
every unit photographed on four angles, the bad shots retaken
every unit read on four angles, every defect placed on it
every unit called against its spec, the fails diverted and proven
every held unit docketed and queued, waiting on a verdict
defects watched across units, a run alerted before it grows
Executive Summary

Every unit that crosses the line, from the frame that catches it to the verdict that clears it. The agents photograph every unit instead of one in ten, read every frame, sort each unit against its spec, and hand a person only the calls that are theirs: the held unit on the bench, the open alert on the line, the change to what counts as a defect. Seven stations, run as a loop: what the bench overturns today changes what the cameras call tomorrow.

What Was Broken

A person used to walk the line each morning checking the cameras were aimed and lit
A person used to inspect one unit in ten under a lamp, and the rest went past unlooked at
A person used to pull failed units off the belt by hand, when they were caught at all
The real cost
A person used to compile the shift numbers from three spreadsheets after close.

What We Built

Seven stations and 14 subagents. Each subagent carries its own tasks and its own refusal.

A4
Frame Grab
Capture every unit crossing the cameras at line speed, four angles each
A3
Shot Check
Check every frame for blur, glare and a unit half out of view
A4
Unit Finder
Locate each unit in its four frames and cut it out of the belt behind it
A3
Defect Reader
Detect scratches, chips, misaligned parts and missing parts on each unit
A4
Spec Match
Match each placed defect against the spec for that product and that customer
A3
Gate Control
Divert each failed unit into the hold lane before the next station reaches it
A1
Docket Builder
Assemble a docket per held unit: the frames, the spec line, the reason it stopped
A3
Verdict Record
Record each decision the technician makes, against the docket it answered
A4
Run Spotter
Track each defect across units: which face, which lane, which hour
A3
Alert Desk
Raise an alert when the same defect repeats past the rule's line
A4
Shift Teller
Count the shift: units through, passed, held, scrapped, reworked, by lane and by hour
A3
Trail Keeper
Keep the trail per unit, captured, read, sorted, decided, so one search finds it
A1
Spec Draft
Draft the spec for the new housing variant from the technician's own verdicts on it
A2
Retrain Picker
Collect the marks the reader would not call, with the bench verdict on each

How It Runs

1

Line Capture

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents photograph every unit crossing the line at line speed, stamp each frame to its unit and lane, retake the bad shots, and send a unit no camera saw clearly to the hold lane whole. Nothing waits on a person here. A unit is never judged off a blurred frame, and never skipped.

2

Defect Inspection

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents read all four angles of every unit, find each scratch, chip and missing part, place it on the unit face by face, and pass a mark they cannot call to the hold lane rather than guess. Nothing waits on a person here. Every unit is read, not one in ten, and a mark rounded neither up to a defect nor down to clean.

3

Line Sorting

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents call each placed defect against the spec for that product, pass what the spec passes, fire the divert arm on what it fails, and hold anything with no spec behind it rather than guess either way. Nothing waits on a person here. A unit with no spec loaded is held whole, not passed on a guess and not failed on one.

4

Hold Bench

A person answers here

Agents build a docket for every held unit, the frames, the spec line and the reason it stopped, recommend a verdict with the evidence above it, and record what the technician decides, including every time the technician overturns them. This is where a person works. Everything upstream exists so that a tray of dockets, not a shift of units, reaches this bench.

5

Line Watch

A person answers here

Agents track every defect across units, lane by lane and hour by hour, group repeats onto the machine station that touches that face, raise an alert when a repeat crosses the rule's line, and keep paging until a person takes it. A person answers the alert and closes it. An agent can name the polisher head; only a person can swap it and say the line is right again.

6

Shift Record

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents count the shift, units through, passed, held, scrapped and reworked, place every defect on the line drawing by face, lane and hour, keep one trail per unit, and hold the board back the moment two counts disagree. Nothing waits on a person here. The board is on the wall screen by shift end, and every number on it opens to the units behind it.

7

Recalibration

A person answers here

Agents turn the bench's overturned holds into proposed threshold changes, draft a spec for the variant that arrived without one, pair every uncalled mark with its bench verdict as a training example, and hold all of it until a person signs. A person decides every change. What counts as a defect on this line is not something an agent adjusts quietly.

Where a Person Decides

Step 4, Hold Bench. Decide the 9 units waiting, unit 1893 first. Say what the new housing variant's spec should be, or who has it. nothing held is scrapped or released without you.
Step 5, Line Watch. Close the lane 3 alert if the scratch count stays down. Say whether the polisher head swap goes in the maintenance log. an agent never closes its own alert.
Step 7, Recalibration. Accept or reject the scratch limit and the variant spec. Say whether the retraining set goes into the next model update. the spec is yours to sign.

Operating Model

This changes how work flows through the team.

Role
Responsibility
Hold Bench owner
Decide the 9 units waiting, unit 1893 first. Say what the new housing variant's spec should be, or who has it. nothing held is scrapped or released without you.
Line Watch owner
Close the lane 3 alert if the scratch count stays down. Say whether the polisher head swap goes in the maintenance log. an agent never closes its own alert.
Recalibration owner
Accept or reject the scratch limit and the variant spec. Say whether the retraining set goes into the next model update. the spec is yours to sign.
Line Capture, when it goes wrong
Look here only if the hold lane fills with unjudged units.
Defect Inspection, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a defect you found by hand was never placed.
Line Sorting, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a unit reaches packing that should not have.

What Transfers, What Must Be True

What transfers
A person is in the loop wherever a unit is scrapped or released, an alert on the line is closed, or the definition of a defect changes. Three stations refuse to proceed on their own, Hold Bench, Line Watch and Recalibration, and those are the three a person carries. Everywhere else the agents photograph, read, sort, count and publish, and reach you only when the call is yours to make.
Hold Bench stops for a person, and nothing held is scrapped or released without you.
Line Watch stops for a person, and an agent never closes its own alert.
Recalibration stops for a person, and the spec is yours to sign.
Every subagent says what it will not do. 14 of them do.
What must be true in your environment
The agent can read the systems your records already live in. This one reads 25.
Somebody owns Hold Bench and has time for it.
Somebody owns Line Watch and has time for it.
Somebody owns Recalibration and has time for it.

Failure Modes

What breaks this pattern:

✗ Judged Off a Bad Frame

A unit gets no clear picture and the line judges it off the blurry one anyway. Bad units pass on evidence nobody could have read.

✗ Shadows Rounded Into Verdicts

The reader cannot tell a mark from a shadow and calls it anyway. Half the guesses scrap good units and the other half ship bad ones.

✗ The Agent Scraps the Unit

A held unit gets scrapped or released on the recommendation alone. Nobody made the call, so nobody can defend it when the customer asks.

✗ The Board Smooths the Gap

The shift counts disagree with the unit trails and the board posts anyway. The number everyone plans against is the one nobody can trace.

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 photographed
Counted at Line Capture
96,400
Units judged off a bad frame
Counted at Line Capture
0
Units sent to the hold lane unjudged
Counted at Line Capture
41
Units read
Counted at Defect Inspection
96,300
Defects a person later found on a passed unit
Counted at Defect Inspection
0
Marks it would not call
Counted at Defect Inspection
214
Units sorted
Counted at Line Sorting
96,300
Failed units found in packed cartons
Counted at Line Sorting
0
Units held with no call
Counted at Line Sorting
380
Shift boards published
Counted at Shift Record
74
Boards later corrected
Counted at Shift Record
0
Boards held for a count mismatch
Counted at Shift Record
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
subagentframe-intake
writesline/frames/<unit-id>/
raisesno-usable-frame
may touchline/frames/**, line/hold/**, the camera feeds read-only
2Defect Inspection
subagentdefect-read
writesline/read/<unit-id>.json
raisescannot-tell
may touchline/read/**, line/frames/** read-only
3Line Sorting
subagentspec-sort
writesline/sorted/<unit-id>.json
raisesdivert-missed
may touchline/sorted/**, line/read/** read-only, the divert arm
4Hold Bench
GATE
subagentdocket-queue
writeshold/dockets/<unit-id>.md
raisesawait-your-verdict
may touchhold/**, everything else read-only
5Line Watch
GATE
subagentrun-watch
writesalerts/<alert-id>.json
raisesalert-raised
may touchalerts/**, line/sorted/** read-only
6Shift Record
subagentshift-close
writesreports/shift-<date>.json
raisescounts-disagree
may touchreports/**, the day's records read-only
7Recalibration
GATE
subagentrecalibrate
writesrules/proposed/<change-id>.json
raisesaccept-change
may touchrules/proposed/**, hold/** read-only, reports/** read-only

Stack

Every system this agent reads or writes.

System
Read at
Stations
the alert rules
Line Watch
1 of 7
the backup camera
Line Capture
1 of 7
the customer spec lines
Line Sorting
1 of 7
the day's dockets
Shift Record
1 of 7
the day's sort record
Shift Record
1 of 7
the defect examples the reader was trained on
Defect Inspection
1 of 7
the divert arm
Line Sorting
1 of 7
the docket record
Recalibration
1 of 7
the dockets
Hold Bench
1 of 7
the hold lane
Line Capture
3 of 7
the hold lane camera
Line Sorting
1 of 7
the line cameras on four angles
Line Capture
1 of 7
the line drawing
Shift Record
1 of 7
the maintenance log
Line Watch
1 of 7
the on-shift paging list
Line Watch
1 of 7
the product spec book
Line Sorting
3 of 7
the proposed changes queue
Recalibration
1 of 7
the reference lighting shots
Line Capture
1 of 7
the retraining set
Recalibration
1 of 7
the rework bench
Hold Bench
1 of 7
the scrap record
Hold Bench
1 of 7
the shift board on the wall screen
Shift Record
1 of 7
the sort record
Line Sorting
2 of 7
the stamped frames
Defect Inspection
1 of 7
the unit record
Defect Inspection
1 of 7
Next Step

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