Manufacturing Industry Overview
The manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace industries are under intense pressure to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, ensure compliance, and accelerate innovation. A significant portion of business-critical information is trapped in unstructured content – such as engineering drawings, SOPs, quality records, supplier contracts, and maintenance documents – dispersed across legacy systems, silos, and paper-based processes. Digital transformation is reshaping the sector, with automation and digital tools poised to significantly increase manufacturing productivity. Intelligent operations, powered by data and automation, are rapidly becoming essential for competitiveness. In this context, effective content governance, automation, and integration with enterprise applications become critical enablers of efficiency, compliance, and business agility.
Industry Challenges
85%
of industrial companies report increased complexity in compliance requirements over the past three years, leading to heightened operational burdens and risks
Over 35%
of manufacturers identified transportation and logistics costs as a primary business challenge, reflecting ongoing supply chain pressures.
Only 1%
of companies consider themselves mature in AI deployment, despite 92% planning to increase AI investments in the next three years
Opportunities and Benefits
Up to 58%
of manufacturing work activities could be automated with current technologies, indicating significant potential for efficiency gains
Up to 40%
reduction in time-to-market and up to 50% increase in workplace productivity are achievable through the integration of AI in R&D processes
Pains and Business Implications in Manufacturing, Automotive & Aerospace
Overcoming Operational Bottlenecks and Embracing Digital Transformation
Every process in manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace industries involves growing volumes of documentation – engineering specs, maintenance manuals, compliance records, contracts, and technical drawings – that must be securely managed, processed, and archived. Document silos and legacy systems increase the risk of errors, slow access to information, and reduce collaboration. Many operations, such as engineering change requests, quality inspections, and equipment maintenance, remain highly manual and error-prone. The reliance on outdated tools to manage complex content creates friction between business and IT, adding to the cost and operational inefficiencies. These challenges directly impact costs, innovation cycles, regulatory readiness, workforce productivity, and overall competitiveness.
The manufacturing, automotive and aerospace industry face several specific challenges:
- Engineering & Design: Handling complex engineering documents, CAD files, and technical drawings with proper version control and access.
- Supply Chain: Coordinating documentation across suppliers, partners, and contractors is time-consuming and fragmented.
- Operations: Managing unstructured data such as technical documentation, BOMs, and maintenance records scattered across legacy systems and paper archives.
- Compliance: Meeting strict regulatory demands (e.g., ISO, AS9100, IATF) requires transparent document control, audit trails, and long-term retention.
- IT: Outdated, siloed platforms increase the burden of maintaining document-centric processes and limit integration with modern tools.
- Security: Protecting intellectual property, proprietary documents, and sensitive supplier contracts from unauthorized access or data loss.
The business implications of these challenges include:
- Higher operational costs due to fragmented systems, manual workflows, and duplicated content storage.
- Delays in time-to-market caused by inefficient access to up-to-date technical and engineering documents.
- Increased compliance risk due to inconsistent document tracking and lack of standardized control mechanisms.
- Reduced workforce productivity and agility due to the inability to access information when and where it’s needed.
Energy companies are increasingly adopting digital technologies to stay competitive and meet evolving customer needs. This transformation is essential for improving operational efficiency and enabling new business models.
Our Solution
SEAL is a next-generation software solution for metadata-driven and AI-enabled content efficiency and compliance. It is an enterprise-grade, low-code digital process automation platform that supports both productivity and cost-reduction use cases (such as digital transformation, paperless processes, and automation) as well as compliance and risk-mitigation scenarios (such as unified information governance and regulatory alignment). Built for both line-of-business and IT users, SEAL unifies document management, compliance, and process automation and provides:
- Enterprise Document & Records Management: Secure, centralized repository for storing, classifying, retaining, and auditing engineering documentation, quality certifications, supplier contracts, test reports, and project files.
- AI-Powered Document Processing: Automatically classify technical documents, extract metadata from specifications, work instructions, and inspection reports, and identify duplicates or outdated versions.
- Low-Code Process Automation: Digitally orchestrate workflows for change order approvals, supplier onboarding, maintenance scheduling, and CAPA (Corrective and Preventive Actions) processes.
- Smart Integration: Connect with SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft, PLM platforms (e.g., Teamcenter, CATIA), CAD systems, and document sources with open APIs and pre-built connectors.
- Advanced Security & Compliance: Enforce metadata-based access control for sensitive design data, encrypt supplier documentation, apply digital signatures, and monitor compliance with industry standards.
- Scalable and Hybrid Ready: Support hybrid deployments with on-premises or cloud infrastructure to meet data sovereignty, scalability, and performance requirements.
Content Modernization and Consolidation in Manufacturing industry
International business with an integrated offering – from the production of liquid steel made from raw and recycled materials through to high value precision engineered steels and associated services, sold to customers around the world.
Challenge
Aged enterprise content management platform (OpenText DM10).
Disparate content sources: challenges of managing islands of information spread across different repositories and line of business applications (SAP, Salesforce)
Registration, classification, and dispatch of documents based on paper-based processes, without automation
Customer field services activity with paper-based processes, without automation
Solution
Content Modernization – Replacing the legacy OpenText with SEAL – a next-gen content management and automation platform; Content and metadata migration from OpenText to SEAL, using SEAL Migrator.
Content Consolidation – Unified, compliant content repository (SEAL) integrated with the core enterprise systems (including SAP, Salesforce).
Digital Front End and Process Origination – with SEAL add-on StarCapture Anywhere
Benefits
Reduced Risks – End-of-life legacy content management platform (OpenText) replaced by a modern, unified content management and automation platform (SEAL).
Operational efficiency: Registration of inbound/outbound documents and their rapid distribution to authorized users, unified active document store and electronic archive and 24/7/365 availability of data;
Business Efficiency – Unified content repository (SEAL) offloading and searching critical line of business applications (SAP, Salesforce, Quadient), enabling information workers to access content data quickly and easily, with less time spent on searching for information and more time spent on core business activities. Cross-systems (SAP, SEAL) business workflows.
Better Data Governance – By centralizing unstructured content in the unified repository, businesses improved their data governance practices.
Manufacturing-specific Use Cases
Replace outdated Document Management Systems (DMS) or Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems with a next gen Content Services Platform to enhance functionality, improve performance, and support modern content management needs.
Centralize unstructured content by consolidating multiple repositories and offloading it from enterprise applications (SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft) as well as industry-specific systems such as Enterprise Asset Management, Workforce and Field Service Management, Project and Capital Investment Management, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This reduces the load on enterprise applications, lowers costs, and improves overall operational efficiency, data accessibility, and compliance.
Streamline and automate digital workflows with secure e-signature functionalities, enhancing operational efficiency and ensuring the authenticity and integrity of electronic documents.
Archive documents in a secure, legally compliant manner for long-term retention, ensuring that all archived content meets regulatory requirements and remains accessible for future reference.
Implement robust governance frameworks to ensure adherence to legal and regulatory standards, providing comprehensive compliance capabilities across all content management processes.
Centralize engineering drawings, product specs, CAD models, and change orders for seamless collaboration and traceability.
Integrate PLM documentation with project collaboration tools and ensure real-time access to updated product data across design, testing, and production.
Automate versioning and approval of SOPs, work instructions, audit checklists, and quality procedures.
Digitize access to maintenance manuals, equipment inspection logs, calibration records, and technician reports.
Streamline vendor evaluation, contract lifecycle, RFQ (Request for Quotation) documentation, and goods acceptance reports.
Centralize HSEQ documentation and records to support audit readiness, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement initiatives.
Learn how leading companies like yours transformed with SEAL.
By replacing expensive legacy ECM applications with next-generation, affordable platforms, organizations can achieve up to 74% cost reduction. Content consolidation and the offloading of unstructured data from enterprise applications further drive efficiency, resulting in 35% lower information management costs.
Content modernization and consolidation can boost efficiency, collaboration, and teamwork by up to 49%. A modern, unified repository with embedded document and process automation eliminates manual tasks and enhances operations, while enabling AI-powered insights from unstructured data.
Obsolete legacy platforms are replaced with a modern, metadata-driven, AI/ML-ready architecture, minimizing the risks associated with outdated technologies. Content consolidation and the adoption of a standardized metadata model ensure that critical documents are preserved and easily accessible during audits, legal investigations, or regulatory requests.
A unified governance framework and automation rules deliver consistent compliance across the organization. At the same time, a centralized, metadata-centric, AI-powered repository enables the proactive detection of regulatory risks, contract inconsistencies, and compliance gaps.
An always-available and secure solution with built-in redundancy and advanced security features – including encryption, authentication, and authorization – protects against data loss caused by disasters, cyberattacks, or hardware failures.
The solution offers a CAPEX-free, pay-per-use model and cost-effective scalability, combined with 24x7x365 enterprise-grade service levels. Its architecture ensures comprehensive operational resilience, providing the flexibility and reliability required in today’s dynamic environments.
Business is no longer located in your corporate office, so why should your business documents be? You have the freedom to choose your ideal delivery model. Available both as a perpetual license for On Premises deployment as well as an On Demand cloud based delivery, you can choose what’s best for you.
On-Premises (local install)
If you would like to purchase the licenses andsimply install them on your hardware, we are here to help, contact us for your special quote.
On-Demand (EU Cloud)
Choose SEAL delivered from our European Data Center located in Bucharest, RO and have local performance and data stored in EU.
On-Demand (Global Cloud)
Choose SEAL delivered from Microsoft Azure and have global reach and multi-site distributed data centers around the world.
Why We are Different
Competitive pricing vs. traditional DMS/ECM platforms, fast implementation, rapid user adoption, low maintenance costs. Capacity based licensing available (unlimited number of users).
ECM, ERM, IDP, DPA, and Content Migration – all in one unified solution, enabling end-to-end digital processes, from document capture, processing, and creation to collaboration, secure e-signing, and archiving.
A proven enterprise software platform, combined with deep industry expertise – trusted by leading organizations such as NN Group, Leadway Insurance, Engie, Vodafone, Liberty Steel, Kaufland, and Servier.
Leading global players like Hitachi Vantara and Infosys trust and support our solutions – extending our reach, validating our technology, and accelerating enterprise-scale deployments across industries.
SEAL delivers a modern, powerful, and easy-to-use interface – designed specifically for business users, not just IT professionals.
SEAL empowers content with business context, using metadata to automate classification, enforce governance, trigger business processes, and apply dynamic security.
SEAL orchestrates unstructured content management and compliance across on-prem and public cloud – delivering full freedom, data mobility, and rule-based control.
