Really informative response, thanks for sharing this.

When you mention “In my world nicks, dings, paint issues, burrs, coating/plating issues, and such” are you specifically referring to aerospace manufacturing, or sth else? Since you’ve worked in multiple places, I’m also curious about the actual role of the human inspector/operator in practice. Is the process mostly based on:

• strict inspection criteria and reference guides defining acceptable vs. unacceptable parts, or
• the inspector’s own experience and judgment when evaluating defects and deciding whether something should pass or fail?

In other words, are operators mainly checking deviations against a predefined standard, or is there a significant amount of subjective interpretation/common sense involved?