@EllaAllen0294 Including fixture work and operator assistance leaves our manual baseline competitive. The motion is repeatable after preparation, but preparing the changing packages keeps expanding beyond what we originally allowed.

Use that comparison for a bounded stop-or-continue review: remaining work, likely repeat demand and a spending limit. Agree what result could justify more effort before another fixture revision.

How much weight should the effort already spent have? I know it's gone, but closing this still feels like throwing the work away.

@PavelBennett0701 On my own packing trial, repeated input changes led us to stop. Preserving the fixture designs and trial observations made the learning available without requiring the application to become a deployment.

If the manual baseline is still competitive, I'd close it. You've already got the answer.

That's premature. They haven't established likely demand or the cost of the remaining work. Frustration and one comparison don't finish that review.

You're right; I treated an input to the decision as the decision itself. The review needs to consider remaining development and demand, with closure as a possible outcome rather than a foregone conclusion.

@EllaAllen0294 I've checked the work coming in. There's little repetition of the setup we've demonstrated. That worries me more than whether another gripper tweak could work.

Would narrowing the application to a single package type be a reasonable option, or would that require a different evaluation from the broad setup?

It's worth assessing as a separate, narrower proposal if the demand exists. Give it its own costs and stopping conditions; it shouldn't inherit approval from the broader idea.

And don't assume that subset exists because it would rescue the story. Ask which real orders would use it.

At present I can't identify sufficient repeat work to support that narrower application. I'll retain it as an unproven option rather than treating it as our agreed direction.

When we closed my separate trial, we documented conditions for reconsideration. That gave us a way to evaluate new samples without treating each one as automatic grounds to resume development.

I'd like a concrete basis for reconsideration. What did you use instead of a vague condition such as spare development time becoming available?

Our conditions were credible recurring work for a specified package and a responsible person for a limited trial. Available time by itself wouldn't have changed the original constraint.

The team hasn't settled criteria for either further development or closure. Without that agreement, I can't present a justified plan to continue.

Understood. Until the continuation criteria are agreed, another promise of progress wouldn't settle the decision.