Kritesh Kaushal

Strategy and Business Development Associate

In the constantly evolving world of Manufacturing, time is money. At the same time, the paperwork required in this industry is huge and causes unprecedented delays. From invoices and shipping labels to compliance reports and audit logs, documentation plays a critical role in ensuring smooth operations, traceability, and regulatory adherence. But for many enterprises in this field, managing documentation remains manual, error-prone, and time-consuming—even in this era of automation.

By using AI-powered SaaS solutions and adopting paperwork automation, manufacturers can completely transform the way they handle documentation. Automating tasks such as mass PDF creation streamlines operations, saves money, enhances precision, and frees your workforce to focus on innovation and long-term growth.

The Hidden Cost of Manual Documentation in Manufacturing

Automating documentation might seem like an expensive undertaking, but the hidden cost of traditional documentation processes far outweighs it:

1. Human Error: Manual processes result in mistakes, causing 80% of quality defects and 23% of unplanned downtime in manufacturing. Reworks and scraps account for 5–30% of total manufacturing costs. (Source: Plutomen)

2. Compliance Risk: 79% of manufacturers report error rates over 1% in supply chain transaction processing. A \(5B company may spend **\)500K per month** on manual processing. (Source: Opentext Blogs)

3. Time-Sensitive Bottlenecks: The top 500 companies lose $1.4 trillion annually (11% of revenue) due to unplanned downtime. Manual document generation—like invoices or labels—creates production delays. (Source: Siemens)

4. Resource Drain: One aerospace engineer spends 1,000+ hours annually on documentation for a single project—half a work year lost to paperwork. (Source: Accuris Tech)

No-code applications like Lexium BRF are specially built for non-technical users, enabling rule changes to be done quickly in response to updates from the RBI about new regulations and internal policy updates.

Hidden cost of manual documentation

Benefits of AI-Powered Document Automation in Manufacturing

✅ Faster Turnaround Time

Several processes in manufacturing, such as packing slips, drafting invoices and documenting Quality Check (QC) reports, cause a lot of delay. It can be automated to ensure all these repetitive processes are done within minutes, eliminating manual intervention, cutting turnaround time and ensuring meeting of tight production and shipping schedules

✅ Better Accuracy

Pre-defined templates and smart field mapping ensure that each document is correct and uniform. This minimizes expensive rework, shipment delays or any other issues due to errors in documentation

✅ Cost Savings

According to research by Deloitte, organizations that have implemented intelligent automation report an average cost saving of 32%. Reduced manual involvement in documentation directly results in savings on labour, paper and printing. Fewer manual interventions also mean reduced labour due to fewer fines, delays or customer complaints

✅ Seamless Integration

Integration with legacy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution System (MES) or Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems is a feature of modern automation tools, allowing the use of real-time data directly into the workflows, thus eliminating redundant data entry and ensuring that documents are always up to date.

✅ Regulatory Compliance

Automated enterprise documentation feature makes it easier for businesses to adhere to documentation standards set by the governing bodies (Eg, RBI in the BFSI industry) for processes such as maintaining audit trails, safety checks or certifications. If the version control is built-in and audit trails are in place, compliance is always traceable and verifiable.

Industry-Wide Applications of Document Automation

1. Automotive Suppliers: Automated generation of compliance certificates and serial-number tracking for shipments.

2. Electronics Manufacturers: Bulk creation of invoices, BOMs, and labels synced with inventory/order systems.

3. Pharmaceutical Plants: Maintaining accurate SOP formatting, batch reports, and QA documentation with version control.

Document Automation can be leveraged by manufacturers

4-Step Implementation Guide

You don’t need a complete digital transformation to begin. Start small, prove the value, and expand. Here’s how:

1. Identify Bottlenecks Focus on repetitive, high-volume, and error-prone documentation tasks.

2. Choose the Right Tool Tools like Lexium PDF offer bulk PDF generation, template customization, and integration with legacy systems.

3. Map Your Workflow Understand how data flows—storage format, schema types—to correctly build automation rules and templates.

4. Start Small, Scale Fast Pilot with one document type. Once proven, expand automation across departments.

Conclusion: Why Document Automation Is a Strategic Imperative

In today’s manufacturing world, enterprise document automation isn’t just a convenience—it’s a necessity.

Automation transforms documentation from a bottleneck to a strategic advantage by:

• Reducing operational costs
• Increasing accuracy
• Enhancing compliance
• Accelerating time-to-delivery

Manufacturers pushing towards digitalization are already unlocking agility, precision, and scalability by adopting document automation.

In the race toward smarter, leaner manufacturing—automated documentation isn’t just smart. It’s essential.