The conversion of machined parts to powdered metal and cast parts comes at the same time that manufacturers face almost no-tolerance for defects and demand for high throughput
Most powdered-metal component suppliers are already doing spot testing via magnetic particle technique on batches of parts from a given production run. The problem starts when a customer, say an automotive manufacturer, experiences field failures. The result is that these component suppliers are put on "parts-hold" and they have to pay for both containment and 100% field inspection on the customer site. At the risk of permanently damaging the company's reputation and losing both existing and new business, significantly larger part batches are subjected to magnetic particle inspection, with 100% of the production lots inspected via a 300% visual part sort-where each part is visually inspected by three separate technicians.