The paper examines tradeoffs in the design of real-time electronic hardware for automated inspection. Starting with data from an earlier paper, it develops a methodology for optimising hardware implementations. Cost/time ratios of proposed hardware modules and the cost * time product of the whole system are found to be important and related criterion functions. Overhead costs and times complicate the picture, but a procedure is obtained that solves this problem. The emphasis of the work is on removing randomness in the design of hardware systems.