Hi Pete, You correctly state, that: "you can't inspect quality into a job - it merely catches some (note some, not all) defects." This is certainly true, but manual inspections also 'catch' a lot of deviations of workmanship standards (or other things that the inspector for some reason does not like) that are nor really defects and have no real impact on quality or reliability. Now, after repair or rework of these 'defects'--has the quality/reliability improved or declined? Werner Engelmaier --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------