Present candidate defects with the evidence, compare a part against the control plan and the current drawing revision, assemble the inspection record and route suspect parts — a qualified person dispositions.
Take station images, gauge and CMM readings and the part identity from the cell and the work order.
02
Load the control plan, the drawing characteristics and the revision in force for that part and operation.
Reason
03
Compare each reading against the characteristic, its tolerance and the sampling frequency the plan names.
04
Present candidate defects beside the image, the station, the fixture and the reference examples matched.
05
Track measured characteristics against the control limits and mark runs, trends and shifts as they build.
Decide
06
Route a suspect part to quarantine and to a named inspector rather than judging it conforming.
07
Hold anything read against a superseded revision or a gauge with no current capability study.
Out
08
Assemble the inspection record — part, lot or serial, station, gauge, revision, reading and image.
09
Present it for signature. Release, scrap, rework and concession stay with the person the procedure names.
→Product statement
The agent presents candidates with the evidence and assembles the record. Disposition — release, scrap, rework or concession — stays with a qualified person named in the procedure.
Example workflow
One part, end to end
AgentHuman
1Part reaches the stationA vision cell, a gauge, a CMM or a manual inspection step named on the work order
2Part and plan identifiedLot or serial, work order, operation, station and fixture, then the control plan and the revision in force
3Characteristics read and matchedReadings against the named characteristics, candidate defects against the labelled reference examples
4Checks appliedRevision currency, gauge calibration and capability, sampling frequency and the control limits
No human action required
Stages 1 to 4 run without a person in the loop — reading, matching and the plan checks all finish before anyone is asked to look at a part. Anything outside tolerance ends that stretch on the spot.
5DecisionSplits on confidence and on whether anything is out of tolerance or out of control
In tolerance, no candidate
Filed as an observation; a person signs it off.
Candidate defect or out of tolerance
Quarantined and put in front of an inspector.
Inspector or quality engineer
Looks at the part, the image and the reading against the control plan, then dispositions it under the procedure.
Disposition · Correct · Send to MRB
Dispositioned — handed back▼
6Record assembled and filedWritten to the quality system only where access and procedure allow; the disposition field stays empty
7Outcome evaluatedEscapes and false rejects against a re-inspected sample, per-defect-class recall and inspector agreement
Corrections
What the inspector overturns is counted in the evaluation.
What should not run autonomously
Human approval stays in control
Outside the boundary — human approval required8 items
Dispositioning a non-conforming part.
Releasing product or certifying conformance.
Scrapping, reworking or accepting under concession.
Closing a non-conformance or corrective action.
Automation boundaryAgent acts unaided
✓Present candidate defects beside the image and the reference examples matched.
✓Compare readings against the control plan and the revision in force.
✓Flag drift against control limits, and gauges with no current capability study.
✓Quarantine-route suspect parts and assemble the record for a person to sign.
The agent writes the inspection record and the routing flag. The disposition and the release are not its to write.
Signing the inspection or batch record.
Changing the control plan or an inspection method.
Widening a tolerance or an accept threshold.
Setting the containment boundary after an escape.
Example output
One part at one station, annotated
Everything the agent presents is attached to the exact part, station and drawing revision it was read from.
Inspection output · single part at one stationIllustrative example
Part and operation
Station
Drawing revision
Presented as
Confidence
Disposition
Machined housing, op 40
Vision cell 2, fixture B
Rev C, in force
Candidate porosity, near edge
87%
Not made by the agent
As receivedThe part, the station and fixture it ran on, and the revision in force at the time — taken from the work order, not inferred.
Evidence usedRev-C characteristic 14Three reference defectsPrior runs, same fixture
Why it was presentedThe feature is in tolerance, but the last runs sit on one side of the mean.
ActionDispositionCorrectSend to MRB
What the score decidesConfidence decides how hard the inspector looks, not whether a part ships.
Value
Where AI adds value
The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.
Where the value landsValue 01 – 04
Every part inspectedVision cell, gauge, CMM or a manual step
03Compare & record
Work to your own control plan
Use the plant's control plan, drawing characteristics, gauge records and the reference defects your inspectors labelled.
01Approved path
Give the inspector evidence, not a verdict
The image, the reading, the characteristic and the reference examples arrive together, so the decision starts from what was seen.
02Human review
Send the doubtful parts, not all of them
Suspect parts and weak candidates reach an inspector while the rest carry a complete record, so attention goes where the doubt is.
04Build an evidence trail
Retain the part, the station and fixture, the revision, the gauge, the image, the reading, the confidence and the disposition — on both paths.
Integrations
Typical integrations
Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.
Integration availability depends on the client's existing systems and API access.
Agent controls
Six layers between the model and the disposition
Each control wraps the one inside it. A candidate clears every layer before an inspector sees it, and the disposition sits outside all six.
L6 · Outermost — last line of defenceInward → L1 · closest to the model
L6Rollback / safe modeReturn the station to your existing inspection method if evaluation signals degrade.Roll back
L5TraceabilityRecord the part, station, fixture, revision, gauge, image, reading and disposition.Record
L4Inspector gateDisposition, release, scrap, rework and concession stay with a qualified person.Gate
L3Candidate confidenceWeak or unfamiliar candidates are marked for the inspector to look again.Flag
L2Gauge capability gateA reading from an uncalibrated or unstudied gauge is reported as not yet meaningful.Withhold
L1Plan and revision checkNothing is compared against a superseded revision or a characteristic the plan does not name.Verify
Model coreCandidate produced — image, reading, matched characteristic, control-limit state and confidence
L1 – L2Keep the comparison current and meaningful
L3Decides how hard the inspector looks
L4 – L5Keep disposition with a person, trail intact
L6Pulls automation back when signals degrade
How Nestack evaluates it
Evaluate the whole inspection — not only the candidates it presents.
Coverage runs the whole depth of the workflow, and every layer is cut by slice.
Surface — the candidate the inspector opens
Depth of coverage ▼
E1Final-output evaluationDid what the agent presented match what a re-inspection found?
E2Step-level evaluationDid it read the right characteristic, tolerance and drawing revision?
E3Tool evaluationDoes the record tie back to the exact part, station, fixture and gauge?
E4Per-defect-class recallHow does recall hold for the classes with only a handful of examples?
E5Slice evaluationHow does performance change across SKUs, shifts and changeovers?
E6Business outcomeWhat escaped, what was falsely rejected, and how much was re-inspected?
Floor — the disposition a qualified person makes
Failure modes
Where each failure originates in the agent
Seven failure modes plotted against the five stages of the agent lifecycle. None of them dispositions a part — the inspector's look, the control plan and the plant's non-conformance process are the controls that stop them. If one gets through and product has shipped, the part, lot, station and revision held in the record are what the quarantine, the customer notification and the containment sort are built from.
Agent lifecycleDirection of processing →
01 · Retrieval2 modes
QI-01
Superseded drawing revision
Compared against a revision the drawing has moved past.
QI-02
Angle the station cannot see
A defect visible only from a view the cell never captures.
Stage gathersThe image, the reading, the plan and the revision
02 · Reasoning1 mode
QI-03
Rare defect class missed
A class with few labelled examples is not presented at all.
Stage comparesThe candidate, the tolerance and the control limits
03 · Record / file1 mode
QI-04
Record ties to no part
The record cannot be pinned to the exact part and station.
Stage filesThe inspection record, written to the quality system
04 · Output2 modes
QI-05
Reading without gauge capability
A measurement reported as if the gauge had been studied.
QI-06
False rejects train waving through
So much is flagged that inspectors stop looking properly.
Stage presentsThe candidate and the evidence the inspector reads
05 · Change / Version1 mode
QI-07
Drift after a rebuild
New lighting, fixture or material moves the station quietly.
Stage tracksModel, threshold, control-plan and station changes
Sev-1 · a defect can reach the customerSev-2 · the record cannot be relied onSev-3 · false rejects rise, the flag stops being read
Two parts on the same line are not the same problem. A mature SKU with thousands of labelled examples reads cleanly; a rare class on a first lot after changeover does not. Nestack reports performance by slice, not only in total.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregateIllustrative example
Slice
Failure rate
Lift
Lift vs. threshold
Status
Rare defect classes
6.6%
3.6×
Review
First-off after changeover
5.0%
2.7×
Review
New SKU, first lot
3.5%
1.9×
Watch
Mature SKU, settled line
1.1%
0.6×
Normal
Bar: disagreement-rate lift vs. mature-SKU baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks 2.0×2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
An escape becomes a part the station is measured on
What the inspector overturned, and what a re-inspected sample found, come back as labelled parts the next release has to get right.
Improvement cycle · five stagesSwitchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
01Detect
Escape and false-reject rates move on a defect class, a SKU or a shift.
02Diagnose
Traced to the view captured, the reference set, the revision read or a fixture that moved.
03Improve
The reference set, threshold or station setup changes under your change control, with a named approver.
04Verify
Re-run against held-out parts from that class, including the ones that escaped, before it is released.
05Learn
The escaped part is kept as a labelled case and the reason enters the control-plan review.
Learn → DetectThe return edge. A change to an inspection method is a control-plan change — it is approved and recorded before the station runs on it, not after.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, station and plan access, candidates and records, evaluation, integration, then supervised running and handover.
WorkstreamWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
01Inspection-workflow discovery and boundaries.
02Control plan and drawing-characteristic mapping.
03Station, gauge and MES access assessment.
04Part, lot and station traceability keys.
05Image and measurement ingestion per station.
06Reference defect library, labelled with your QA.
07Candidate presentation and evidence assembly.
08Revision-currency and gauge-capability gates.
09Control-limit and drift monitoring.
10Evaluation suite and held-out defect classes.
11Inspection-record write-back and routing.
12Observability, deployment and Agent Care handover.
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallelFinal scope and sequence confirmed in discovery
Engagement tiers
What each tier includes
Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.
Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tierPilotOne station, one part familyProductionProduction quality-system integrationAdvancedMulti-line / multi-site
Introduced at Pilot
Candidate defects presented with evidence✓✓✓
Comparison against your control plan✓✓✓
Drawing-revision currency checks✓✓✓
Dimensional checks and gauge-capability gates✓✓✓
Disposition by a qualified person✓✓✓
Baseline evaluation✓✓✓
Introduced at Production
Control-limit and drift monitoring—✓✓
Inspection-record assembly and write-back—✓✓
Observability and evaluation—✓✓
Introduced at Advanced
Per-defect-class and changeover slices——✓
Multi-line and enterprise controls——✓
Build priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build priceConfirmed after discovery based on stations and part families in scope, control-plan complexity, quality-system and gauge integrations, labelling effort and deployment requirements.
Separate from buildBuild pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.
What we need from you
What you bring, and what we build with it
Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.
You bringWe build with it
01Your control plan and the drawing characteristics it names→Control plan and drawing-characteristic mappingWeek 1
02Access to station images, gauges, CMM output and the MES→Station, gauge and MES data-access assessmentWeek 2
03How a part, lot and station are identified on the floor today→Part, lot and station traceability keysWeek 2
04Labelled examples of the defects you actually see, rare ones included→Reference defect library, labelled with your QAWeek 3
05Your gauge register, calibration status and MSA studies→Revision-currency and gauge-capability gatesWeek 4
06Escapes and false rejects from the last year, with the parts if you kept them→Evaluation suite, held-out defect classes and failure-mode testingWeek 4
07Named inspectors and a quality engineer who dispositions→Routing and inspection-record workflow, then supervised runningWeeks 5–6
Nothing else is requiredDeployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
Phases are drawn over the weeks they actually occupy. Week 5 carries both the held-out defect classes and the first parts your inspectors disposition from.
PhaseW1W2W3W4W5W6
DiscoveryW1
BuildW2 – W3
EvaluateW4 – W5
Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focusW1Inspection-workflow discovery, control plan and drawing characteristicsW2Station, gauge and MES access, then part and lot traceability keysW3Reference defect library, candidate presentation and evidence assemblyW4Evaluation suite, per-defect-class recall and gauge-capability gatesW5Held-out defect classes, first supervised parts and targeted correctionsW6Your inspectors disposition from the station, then Agent Care starts
Reading the bandPer-defect-class recall, rare classes included, is tested in week 4 — before any candidate is put in front of an inspector in week 5.
At the end of W6The station has run alongside your existing inspection and been read by the inspectors who disposition from it, then Agent Care takes over monitoring.
DurationSix-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · Manufacturing AI agent
Build an inspection copilot around your control plan.
Show us one part family, its control plan and drawing characteristics, and the escapes and false rejects you have on file. We'll run your own parts past one station, report recall per defect class including the rare ones, and show you the record an inspector would sign.
