An inspection decision that marks a conforming unit for rejection.
Also called: false positive; good product rejection; mis-rejection.
Identifying a false-reject decision
You need the unit’s independently established condition and its inspection decision. With positive explicitly meaning “target defect detected,” a conforming unit classified as defective is a false-positive decision. State that convention before using positive/negative terminology.
Classify the decision against the unit’s known condition and the stated inspection criterion. A correctly rejected nonconforming unit is a true reject, even though it contributes to the same physical bin total.
Is rejecting a neighbouring good bottle the same error?
A wrong inspection decision and a wrong physical diversion are different failures. A detector may correctly flag a defective bottle while a mistimed reject mechanism removes a neighbouring conforming bottle. That sequence does not prove the inspection decision on the good bottle was false-positive; the records must identify which unit was classified and which was moved.
Keep inspection decisions separate from reject timing, physical diversion and confirmation in a fault investigation. A lower reject total after a setting change is not by itself evidence that both false rejects and missed defects improved.