Inspection management system, inspection management apparatuses, and inspection management method

An inspection management method which has a plurality of processes and manages, in a product production line including a plurality of manufacturing apparatuses and inspection apparatuses corresponding to the plurality of processes, a final inspection performed to inspect a completed product subjected to the plurality of processes and one or more intermediate inspections performed to inspect an intermediate product manufactured in the processes earlier than a final process, the method comprising:

• checking an inspection situation by the inspection apparatus;
• determining whether inspection content is appropriate based on the inspection situation and training data associated with a plurality of previous inspection contents;
• calculating an appropriate inspection content when it is determined in that the inspection content is not appropriate, wherein the appropriate inspection content corresponds to a higher first pass ratio of a good-quality product which is an index related to detection of defect due to excessive inspection in the intermediate inspection than that of the inspection content or a higher number of cases in which products determined to be defect products in the final inspection than that of the inspection content;
• presenting the calculated appropriate inspection content to a user along with base information indicating that the inspection content is appropriate;
• receiving an approval from the user for performing the inspection in accordance with the inspection content;
• setting the inspection content by the inspection apparatus to new inspection content when the approval is received from the user;
• storing data of the new inspection content as history information along with setting-related information including a time at which at least the new inspection content is set when the new inspection content is set;
• and
• performing inspection on the completed product based on the new inspection content.