The Manufaturing Challenge Manufactures of high value-added materials are experiencing ever greater pressure to meet a multitude of business demands. ?Boost production rate, increase yield, improve quality, reduce operating costs, expand market share, control inventory and improve management information?  has become the industry mantra.  Satisfy a single demand is a challenge.  Pick two and the difficulty increases dramatically. Production departments are expected to generate substantial progress is all seven dimensions, concurrently.  If this task were simple, it would have been accomplished

long ago.  Hence, achieving simultaneous progress means a step change in the manufacturing paradigm; automatic inspection represents the means to achieve these goals.

Typically, product is manually inspected at various stages in a process.  However, increasingly rigid quality requirements make this practice untenable; human inspectors are unable to detect small defects on a consistent basis.  Additionally, process control feedback is very limited, if it exists at all.  The industry needs to automate this task.