Abstract: An immobilizing device particularly useful during processing or testing flat workpieces includes an air-cushion unit carried at the lower end of a carrier member and having an annular skirt defining with the workpiece, an air-cushion chamber effective, when pressurized, to cause the air-cushion unit to hover over the workpiece to permit relative movement between the air-cushion unit and the workpiece and table, while immobilizing and flattening the board with respect to the table.

Abstract: Inspection of workpieces traveling along a production line includes on-line inspection of the workpieces at an upstream inspection station to detect possible flaws without interrupting the progression of workpieces along the production line. Possible flaws in the inspected workpieces are imaged, and images of possible flaws are stored in a memory in a way that associates a stored image with the workpiece containing the possible flaw. Off-line, a stored image is retrieved from the memory before the workpiece with which the image is associated reaches a downstream sorting station. The retrieved image is displayed on a monitor for verifying, by visual inspection, whether the possible flaw in the workpiece with which the retrieved image is associated, is valid. Workpieces are diverted at the downstream sorting station in response to vertification of flaws.