Key takeaways
Short answer: First-piece catches setup errors. Last-piece catches drift. SPC during the run catches in-between. Plants that skip last-piece scrap good runs that drifted out of spec; plants that skip first-piece run thousands of bad parts before noticing. See also Operator Self-Inspection vs QA Inspection.
Without first-piece, the operator runs to completion before discovering the entire batch is wrong.
Without last-piece, drift goes unnoticed; out-of-spec batches reach the customer.
Periodic samples during the run catch trends before they reach spec limits. Bridges between first and last piece.
1. First-piece only. Drift unnoticed.
2. Last-piece only. Setup errors discovered after thousands of bad parts.
3. No SPC between. Long runs accumulate undetected drift.
4. Inspection records not retained. Audit trail broken.
Both inspections drive OEE Quality calculation. Catching setup error first-piece prevents scrap from inflating the Quality denominator.
Fabrico's OEE module tracks first-piece, in-process, and last-piece inspection results separately and links each to the production order.
See how Fabrico captures this automatically — explore OEE for manufacturing or book a demo.
No. SPC assumes the setup is correct; first-piece verifies that.
Often yes if SPC sampling extends to end of run.
Operator typically; QA periodically.
Variable. Minutes to hours depending on complexity.
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