Patent ID: 7260441

Claim:
A method of inspecting a selected workpiece during a production run in which workpieces are supplied to a plurality of workstations, said method comprising the steps of: (a.) performing a control routine that controls the movement of the workpieces to and from the workstations, said control routine operating in a series of cycles; (b.) generating a signal requesting the selected workpiece from a selected one of the workstations; (c.) in response to the signal, interrupting the performance of the control routine at the end of the then current cycle and moving the selected workpiece from the selected one of the workstations to a quality control station; (d.) resuming the performance of the control routine; (e.) inspecting the selected workpiece after step (d); (f.) determining whether the selected workpiece is acceptable; (g.) if the selected workpiece is acceptable, generating a second signal indicating that the selected workpiece is ready to be transported to an output area; and (h.) in response to the second signal, interrupting the control routine at the end of the then current cycle and moving the selected workpiece from the quality control station to the output area (h 1 .) informing the control routine that non-selected workpieces should not be delivered to the selected one of the workstations; and wherein step (h 1 .) is performed between steps (c.) and (d.).