Issues in software inspection

In manufacturing, agriculture and transportation, inspections are a routine part of business, making our lives safer and more comfortable. Yet in software, we generally leave inspections to companies that are quite advanced in their process maturity. Why do most companies skip inspections when their is so much to gain? In 1991, the author began the National Software Quality Experiment, an ongoing database of software defects and inspections practice. In his study, participants from dozens of organizations described defects and these were entered into the experiment's database. In this article, the author makes a case for implementing inspections at all levels of software development practice, based on what he has learned thus far.