A digital inspection result can be numerically accurate and still wrong for the job. If a part is measured against an obsolete drawing revision, the instrument records the dimension faithfully, the software produces a polished report, and the incorrect conclusion reaches every reader quickly. In a Metrology News column, behavioral scientist Gleb Tsipursky argues that manufacturers moving toward AI-assisted inspection should give every consequential measurement a "version passport."
Tsipursky, chief executive of Disaster Avoidance Experts and author of The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026), frames the proposal as a management fix rather than a new software category. The passport, he writes, can begin as a set of fields that travel with a result: the approved drawing or model revision, the characteristic identifier, the inspection-plan revision, the instrument or method used, the result timestamp, and the identity of the person or system that approved the disposition.
Why connected metrology raises the stakes
He points to an October 26 Metrology News account of persistent identification, which describes how Quality Information Framework data can preserve the identity of a measured characteristic across product definitions, inspection plans and results. The technical promise there is traceability; the management challenge is ensuring that each decision follows the correct version of the requirement. As measurement data moves between systems more freely, a mismatch between the specification actually applied and the one governing the part becomes easier to propagate and harder to spot.
The failure mode AI can amplify
AI tools can already summarize an inspection report, point to an apparent deviation, or recommend which cases need review. The risk, according to the column, is that a tool receiving results without version context may compare an observation against the wrong specification. The arithmetic can be correct while the conclusion is invalid.
Tsipursky cites the National Institute of Standards and Technology's 2026 smart-manufacturing roadmap, which lists integration of heterogeneous data and trustworthy operation among the continuing challenges for industrial AI. A version passport addresses a narrow slice of that agenda: it makes a measurement's origin and applicable conditions visible to the next decision-maker.
A small test before platform integration
Quality teams can try the idea before committing to a new platform. He suggests selecting a small set of completed inspection records — including one legitimate out-of-tolerance result, one conforming part, and one example with mismatched revisions — then asking an AI assistant to summarize the evidence, identify the applicable revision and flag missing provenance. Its answers should be compared with the determination of an experienced quality engineer.
The evaluation should not stop at how often the assistant labels a part good or bad, he writes. Reviewers should record whether it catches a revision mismatch, whether it invents an unstated tolerance, and whether it can point to the approved source behind a conclusion. Those, the column argues, are the errors that digital handoffs tend to conceal.
Ownership when records disagree
Disagreement also needs an owner. Under the proposal, a quality engineer determines whether a measurement is valid, design engineering confirms the governing definition, and manufacturing decides whether production can continue. The escalation route should be settled before an alert appears, rather than negotiated during a shipment dispute.
Beyond human-versus-AI comparisons
The argument departs from the familiar demand for more comparisons between AI and human inspectors. Even perfect agreement between the two can reinforce a wrong decision if both were handed an obsolete specification, Tsipursky notes; the reference itself needs scrutiny. Automation lets measurement data travel farther and faster, and a reliable chain of custody is what keeps the drawing, the feature, the method and the result together at the moment the decision is made.