Manufacturing documentation & compliance

Our client is a developer of a new leading technology that improves the efficiency and performance of solar power, set to accelerate the viability of solar technology as an alternative to fossil fuels. The company was spun off from a leading UK university and operates out of two sites in the UK and mainland Europe.

The Brief

The company had a number of challenges to solve as they moved from a research and development phase towards the production of their technology with increased document management needs across different operational areas. The client shared their requirements with their IT supplier (an FTSE250 listed UK leader) who immediately recognised the need for a specialist approach and reached out to us.

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Manufacturing documentation and compliance

Chief of these challenges was a need to meet new requirements around compliance and control of documents in manufacturing processes. In any manufacturing process, it is essential to document every stage of processes and their fulfilment.

Operating procedures, policies and processes were expanding daily to support the activities of the company and it was rapidly creating a significant number of documents that needed to be controlled for the company to be compliant with stringent manufacturing industry standards such as ISO9001.

The company needed to be able to control the authoring and revision of key documents, audit their review and changes, capture sign-offs and then distribute them to the workforce, all the while maintaining records of who had reviewed and understood the information.

Financial operations document management

As the company moved toward production it saw an increase in purchasing activities to support scaling the operation but also in day-to-day manufacturing operations.

The purchasing through to payment processes placed an increased burden on the finance team to organise a rapidly increasing volume of documents; everything from purchasing documents to accounts payable invoices and delivery notes. This activity requires authorisation of purchases, checking in of goods against invoices and routing for approvals for exceptions and high-value purchases.

Contractual document management

Being a company at the cutting edge of research and development in its space requires tight control and confidentiality of its information assets across operations across suppliers, customers and people. With a growing supply chain and engagement with third parties, the company recognised a need to produce a system to monitor and control contractual obligations.

Our Solution

VP listened to the customers’ requirements and worked with them to define the current and envisaged future processes.

We focused on targeting the benefits that the customer anticipated and required from a new solution, identifying the three key areas above that we could make a difference to quickly.

VP provided a technology package based on a highly versatile business process automation and document management system. This was supplemented with a cloud AI solution for intelligent document processing of supplier invoices in multiple languages and currencies to remove manual data entry from their finance team operations.

The document management system was ideally suited with a proven base of customers in the manufacturing and R&D sectors. The solution features a pre-configured Quality Management System for controlling the quality process documentation, a pre-configured contract lifecycle management solution and a finance document processing solution. This added value, enabling fast deployment and high levels of customisation to suit the customers’ specific needs.

The solution is integrated into the customers ERP system that controls their manufacturing inventory, supply chain and finances. It links all documents to relevant customers, suppliers and processes with ease.

We also integrated the solution to DocuSign, enabling fast and effortless contractual transactions.