Automated inspection

A method of automatic inspection of instances of an item of manufacture, the item comprising a plurality of discrete elements of different types, the item including a plurality of discrete elements of a same type, the method comprising:

• (a) providing an inspection plan for said instances of said item of manufacture;
• wherein said inspection plan refers to said discrete elements of different types and assigns a different inspection operation for different types of discrete elements and a same inspection operation to at least two discrete elements of a same type;
• (b) detecting a defect with an automated process:
• (i) inspecting at least one instance of the item of manufacture using at least one imaging sensor and following said inspection plan;
• (ii) automatically identifying a plurality of defects in said at least one instance of the item of manufacture;
• (c) automatically modifying said automated process in response to data related to the manufacture of a first discrete element from a plurality of discrete elements of a selected type, and data related to the manufacture of a second discrete element from said plurality of discrete elements of said selected type, the first and second elements being associated with a region in which at least one defect of said plurality of defects is detected;
• and
• (d) repeating said (b)-(c) using said modified automated process for at least one of the instances of the item of manufacture;
• wherein said detecting comprises applying operations which said inspection plan assigns with reference to each of said referred to elements;
• wherein the automatically modifying comprises:
• modifying the inspecting of said first discrete element in a first manner in response to detecting said at least one defect, and with respect to inspection operations and/or parameters defined therefor, such that the second discrete element from said plurality of discrete elements of said selected type is to be inspected in a second manner distinct from said first manner;
• wherein the modifying the inspecting comprises modifying at least one property of a plurality of properties of a data acquisition portion of the automated process;
• and
• wherein the modifying at least one property of the plurality of properties of the data acquisition portion comprises inspecting said item using one or more additional sensors in response to detecting said at least one defect.