The drawing marks three base pads and two side contacts. A raised end block touches another face, but its purpose isn't stated. That's the one that makes me suspicious.

Suspicion is fair, verdict isn't. Are the brackets themselves within drawing requirements at those contact features? My own loading study has part variation tangled up with seating.

Retain the awkward samples with identities; a replacement handful can make this problem vanish on paper.

Owen, those features haven't been checked yet. Elliot, I've kept the samples separate and numbered. Nothing has been altered on the bench nest, so the designer can see the arrangement that produced the seating difference.

Good. Does one bracket repeat its own seating, or does the same bracket vary between placements? Those lead me to different questions

Owen, I would want that comparison too, with the seating method recorded rather than an instruction to push until it feels right.

Sarah, yes. We had an inspection fixture that relied on one person's thumb. Replacing that thumb with a clamp was not automatically the same measurement condition.

I don't have a repeat-placement record yet. The difference was between samples laid in by hand. I'll ask quality and the designer to define that check instead of treating my first observation as a repeatability result.

Add cleanliness and obvious burr checks to the observation. Record findings before cleaning changes the evidence.

Elliot, yes, but don't make every troublesome contact a burr by default. Oscar still needs the feature measurements and the purpose of that end block

Agreed. Cheap check, not a diagnosis.

Designer has explained the end block as a loading guide, not a datum. Its current clearance has not been demonstrated across our bracket variation. That is a more specific question than add clamp force.

Then ask them to show how the guide stops participating once the bracket is seated. Calling it a guide doesn't stop it being an accidental locator.

And retain its loading purpose in any revision; simply removing a troublesome feature could leave the operator without the guidance the fixture was intended to provide.

Oscar, do quality and the designer agree which sample variation the clearance must accommodate, including acceptable limits rather than just today's handful?

They have the drawing limits and retained samples for that discussion. No agreed clearance yet. I haven't told purchasing that the guide is being removed or that a new clamp is needed.

Purchasing can wait for a defined revision. Buying the larger clamp now would turn a question about seating into an argument about why the new clamp must be used.

Thanks Sarah for preserving the loading-guide purpose, and Owen for separating sample variation from repeat placement. Both are in the review request. Tooling approval stays open until the proposed locating scheme is demonstrated.