Patent ID: 8290610

Claim:
A method of manufacturing an article, the method comprising: a. storing a set of manufacturing instructions for a machine; b. inputting at least some of the manufacturing instructions into the machine; c. manufacturing an article with the machine in accordance with the input manufacturing instructions; d. generating a realisation log which is indicative of the operations that the machine has actually performed in manufacturing the article wherein the realization log is generated by the machine recording each operation that it performs on the article including operations which differ from operations specified in the manufacturing instructions and operations in accordance with the operations specified in the manufacturing instructions, and wherein the realization log is generated by the machine without any inspection of the article; and e. generating a report by comparing the realisation log with the stored set of manufacturing instructions comprising comparing an operation in the realisation log with an associated manufacturing instruction; determining on the basis of the comparison whether the operation falls within a predefined tolerance level; categorising the operation in the report as mishandled if it falls within this level; and categorising the operation in the report as omitted if it falls outside this level.