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Document Automation in Mechanical Engineering: Streamlining Efficiency and Productivity

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Document Automation in Mechanical Engineering: Streamlining Efficiency and Productivity

In the mechanical engineering and manufacturing industries, managing a wide range of documents is an indispensable task. Traditionally, procurement, sales and industry-specific documents have been processed manually, which is highly time-consuming and error-prone. However, with sophisticated document automation technology, the mechanical engineering and manufacturing sector can benefit from advancements in efficiency, accuracy, and collaboration.

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Which Documents Are Typically Processed in Mechanical Engineering Companies?

The documents that are processed in the mechanical engineering sector range from sales and procurement documents such as customers orders, order confirmations, and invoices to documents specific to the daily work of manufacturing and engineering enterprises. These include technical drawings, specifications, design blueprints, manufacturing schedules, quality assurance reports, project plans, equipment manuals, and test reports. Each document serves a crucial purpose in different stages of a project, capturing critical information and guidelines for design, production, installation, and maintenance. In such a multidisciplinary field, the ability to process, manage and track these documents effectively becomes paramount.

The Importance of Recognising the Unique Characteristics of Mechanical Engineering Documents

One essential aspect of document automation lies in understanding the idiosyncrasies of documents specific to the mechanical engineering industry. These documents often contain complex technical data, including drawings, calculations, and precise specifications. To automatically process these documents, software solutions are required that can handle file formats such as AutoCAD drawings or engineering software outputs. Recognising the unique characteristics and requirements of mechanical engineering documents is crucial in choosing and implementing the right automation tools.

The Benefits of Document Automation in Mechanical Engineering

Enhancing Efficiency

Automating document processing in the mechanical engineering industry provides a myriad of benefits, addressing the drawbacks of manual handling. Firstly, one of the primary reasons for adopting document automation solutions is the significant improvement in efficiency. By eliminating the need for manual data entry, filing, and searching, engineers and other professionals can focus more on core tasks, leading to increased productivity and faster project completion. Moreover, automation greatly reduces the chances of errors or inconsistencies, ensuring better quality control and compliance with regulations.

Streamlining Collaboration and Productivity

By leveraging document automation tools, teams can streamline their workflows, improve communication and collaboration, and reduce the risk of errors or miscommunication. Engineers can access up-to-date documentation at any time, from any location, ensuring everyone is working with the most recent version of a document. Furthermore, automated document processing allows for seamless retrieval and sharing of information, enhancing cross-team collaboration and making project management more efficient.

The Key to Successful Document Automation in Mechanical Engineering: Seamless Integration

Integrating automation solutions into existing workflows, systems like ERP, CRM and supply chain management, and collaboration tools can be complex, sometimes requiring meticulous planning, training, and change management efforts. Ensuring compatibility between existing document management systems and new automation software is crucial to avoid disruptions and data loss. The full potential of document automation solutions can only be realised if they can be seamlessly and easily integrated into the existing IT and system landscape. If mechanical engineering and manufacturing companies want to fully benefit from document automation software, choosing a solution which does not interrupt existing processes or burdens IT teams is key.

The Future of Document Processing in Mechanical Engineering Is Automated

Document automation in mechanical engineering and manufacturing is revolutionising the way professionals handle and manage critical documents. By eliminating manual processing, teams can realise higher productivity, better accuracy, and enhanced collaboration. Embracing intelligent software solutions and understanding the unique characteristics of mechanical engineering documents will enable the industry to meet the challenges head-on and leverage the immense benefits that automation brings. As technology continues to advance, the future of document management in mechanical engineering looks increasingly automated, efficient, and productive.

Case Study: Global purchasing automation at Syntegon

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Fallstudie: Globale Einkaufsauto-matisierung bei Syntegon

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March 15, 2024
Unlocking Operational Excellence: The Crucial Role of Smooth Integration in Document Automation

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Unlocking Operational Excellence: The Crucial Role of Smooth Integration in Document Automation

The seamless integration of new technological solutions into pre-existing business frameworks is critical for the success of each software project. This integration is particularly vital in document processing automation, where the aim is to augment efficiency, accuracy, and swiftness without placing additional strain on IT resources or disrupting ongoing operations.

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The Integration Challenge in Document Automation

Integrating new document automation solutions into established business systems presents a unique set of challenges. These obstacles often stem from the inherent complexity of existing IT infrastructures, which can vary widely between organisations, and the diverse range of document formats and standards that businesses handle daily. Achieving seamless integration requires not only technical compatibility but also the flexibility to adapt to specific operational workflows and data formats. Without careful consideration, businesses risk introducing disruptions that can impede workflow efficiency and data integrity. Recognising these challenges is the first step towards implementing a solution that enhances rather than complicates the existing processes.

The Significance of Smooth Integration

Effortless integration is fundamental to the success of automation initiatives. It guarantees that new solutions can effectively communicate with existing systems, like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, without necessitating extensive bespoke development or manual meddling. This interoperability is key to upholding data uniformity, minimising errors, and optimising workflow efficacy across departments.

Furthermore, the significance of alleviating the IT burden is important. IT departments, often already operating at full capacity maintaining current systems whilst deploying new technologies, benefit immensely from solutions that require minimal IT oversight for integration. This reduction in IT demand not only expedites deployment but also significantly lowers the total cost of ownership and hastens the return on investment.

The Netfira Platform: The Epitome of Integration Simplicity

Netfira’s innovative approach to document processing automation exemplifies how solutions can be powerful yet effortlessly integrable. Recognising the varied and complex needs of modern businesses, Netfira delivers a cloud-based platform that seamlessly integrates with any existing IT landscape.

Plug-and-Play Functionality: Designed for immediate integration, Netfira offers plug-and-play capabilities that circumvent the usual complexities of new software setup, substantially lightening the load on IT departments for a smoother transition and quicker uptake.

Universal Compatibility: The Netfira Platform’s adaptable architecture guarantees compatibility, automating document processing without the headache of system mismatches, whether it’s integrating with SAP and non-SAP systems, CRMs, or bespoke platforms.

User-Centric Design: The Netfira Platform reduces reliance on IT through its intuitive, no-code interface, empowering non-technical users to configure, modify, and oversee workflows, further diminishing the IT dependency.

Adaptable Data Export: Netfira supports exporting data in any format, facilitating seamless data flow via API or SFTP transfer to any downstream system, enhancing operational efficiency without the need for manual data re-entry or conversion.

Ongoing Support and Evolution: Netfira provides continuous support and periodic system updates, ensuring that as business processes and systems evolve, Netfira remains synchronised with the company’s evolving requirements.

Conclusion

Integrating new technologies into existing business systems is a balancing act of enhancing capabilities without introducing undue complexity. Netfira’s document processing automation platform meets this challenge by offering a solution that caters to immediate business needs and anticipates future demands. By prioritising easy integration, minimising IT workload, focusing on user empowerment, and ensuring flexible data export, Netfira redefines the expectations for automation solutions. Thus, it addresses not only the current challenges but also paves the way for a more adaptable and resilient technological future.

Case Study: Global purchasing automation at Syntegon

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Whitepaper: Dokumentenauto- matisierung entlang des P2P-Prozesses

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February 28, 2024
Automate to Innovate: Automating Incoming Goods in Pharmaceutical Procurement

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Automate to Innovate: Automating Incoming Goods in Pharmaceutical Procurement

Following our previous discussion in “Unpacking the Complex World of Pharmaceutical Procurement,” this piece explores the transformative impact of automation on pharmaceutical procurement. We delve into how automating the handling of incoming goods is not just a solution to current challenges but a significant step towards innovative procurement processes in the pharmaceutical industry.

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Revisiting the Main Pharmaceutical Procurement Challenges

Pharmaceutical procurement, especially concerning hazardous or critical goods, demands stringent adherence to quality and safety standards. Like in other industries, such as the chemicals and materials industry or the engineering and manufacturing sector, this necessitates detailed information and documentation management and processing of various documents, including certificates, delivery notes, and goods records. Due to these distinct characteristics and requirements of pharmaceutical procurement, procurement managers are confronted with significant challenges: efficiently managing vast information databases, swiftly processing critical documents, overcoming the hurdles of manual data entry, and time-consuming data archiving, all of which divert focus from other tasks.

Pharmaceutical Procurement Automation: Why Pharma Procurement Needs Transformation

Over the last few years, the expectations placed on pharma procurement departments to meet requirements and quality standards while controlling costs and managing volatile supply chains have risen and are expected to rise further. These teams face a dual challenge: driving value creation and innovation while ensuring transparent and stable processes. Unfortunately, manual tasks often hinder their efficiency. To remain agile and future-ready, transforming pharmaceutical procurement through automation is not just beneficial but essential.

Reasons for Automating Incoming Goods

In pharmaceutical procurement, it is essential for procurement teams to plan ahead and maintain stable, uninterrupted workflows. The daily influx of raw materials, medical products, ampoules, and packaging necessitates well-organised and clear documentation. Automating these processes not only alleviates the burden on procurement teams but also enhances speed and accuracy. This automation extends to the processing of certificates and delivery notes, ensuring a seamless integration into the procurement system.

Automating Certificates and Delivery Notes in Pharmaceutical Procurement

In pharmaceutical procurement, hazardous goods are sent with a certificate. As these goods are mostly shipped in batches, each batch is delivered with a certificate. Consequently, when one order is delivered in 20 batches, 20 certificates need to be processed. Processing these certificates and delivery notes manually not only increases workload but is prone to errors.

Automated processing of delivery notes enhances the efficiency of incoming goods management, allowing for advanced knowledge of batch details and necessary storage conditions. This comprehensive automation ensures that procurement teams have access to vital information, facilitating informed decision-making and swift response to changes.

The Benefits of Automated Archiving

Document archiving, a critical component of the pharmaceutical P2P process, can be a daunting and monotonous task, if performed manually. Implementing automation solutions transforms this essential function by enabling rapid and accurate archiving of vital documents like certificates and records. Automated extraction, processing, and archiving of information ensure that documents are always readily accessible, significantly boosting efficiency and reliability in the procurement process.

The Benefits of Automating Incoming Goods and Archiving

Automating incoming goods and archiving offers numerous benefits to overcome challenges of pharmaceutical procurement. It minimises manual labor, significantly saving time and reducing errors. This shift allows staff to allocate their focus to other critical areas. Automated processes ensure streamlined operations, enhanced data quality, and consistent transparency, with reliable information readily available. The resulting structured data empowers teams to make informed decisions, plan, react to unforeseen changes, adapt to requirements and adhere to quality standards.

Choosing Wisely: Finding the Perfect Automation Software for Pharmaceutical Procurement Automation

For pharmaceutical procurement automation to be successful, it is vital to choose the right automation solution. When automating incoming goods and document processing, choosing a sophisticated, intelligent automation solution is paramount. Cloud-based Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) platforms, such as the Netfira Platform, are adept at accurately extracting and validating data from documents, thus ensuring high-quality data. Further, integration with existing systems, like ERP and CRM, is essential for seamless data flow and efficient archiving. On top of that, the scalability of cloud-based IDP solutions allows for the expansion of automation to other areas like invoice processing, further enhancing the procurement process.

Pharmaceutical Procurement Automation: Automating Incoming Goods Processes

The automation of incoming goods is a cornerstone of pharmaceutical procurement automation. By automating the processing of documents such as certificates and delivery notes, pharmaceutical procurement teams are relieved of time-consuming and error-prone manual activities. This automation facilitates faster and more efficient workflows, significantly enhancing decision-making and planning capabilities. Advanced Intelligent Document Processing solutions, such as the Netfira Platform, are exceptionally equipped to meet the rigorous demands of pharmaceutical procurement. Thanks to their extraordinary precision in data extraction and validation, they provide the necessary data quality, process stability and transparency to make procurement in the pharmaceutical industry competitive and future-proof.

Whitepaper: How IDP optimises procurement

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January 19, 2024
Unpacking the Complex World of Pharmaceutical Procurement

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Unpacking the Complex World of Pharmaceutical Procurement

In the pharmaceutical industry, procurement plays an increasingly important role. At the same time, pharmaceutical procurement teams are faced with a variety of challenges. This blog post delves into the intricate world of pharmaceutical procurement, highlighting its pivotal role and outlining the major hurdles encountered in the process. Discover how technological enhancements, particularly in automation, are revolutionsing this field.

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Pharmaceutical Procurement Unveiled  

Pharmaceutical procurement is the process of acquiring pharmaceuticals and medical devices by a company or organisation. It encompasses the identification of needs, evaluation of options, supplier selection, contract negotiations, and product delivery, demanding resources like medical expertise, technology, and robust infrastructure.

The Pillars of Procurement in Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical procurement can be divided into three categories: direct procurement, indirect procurement, and contract procurement. 

Direct Procurement

Involves purchasing directly from a single source, often under bulk or military contracts.

Indirect Procurement

Entails buying from multiple sources, useful for creating custom pharmaceutical blends.

Contract Procurement

Outsourcing procurement to a third party, often utilised for exploring new product options.

The Significance of Procurement in the Pharma Industry

In an industry where innovation and cost control are paramount, procurement is increasingly recognised as a critical driver. Procurement teams are being seen as value creators, contributing to innovation and collaboration, and taking centre stage in strategic planning and management. 

Pharma companies are focusing on transforming procurement by aligning procurement objectives with wider business areas to enable growth and cost reduction, establishing a preferred supplier programme to integrate suppliers, and leveraging technologies to facilitate better decision making.

Pharma’s Unique P2P Dynamics 

The end use of procured goods by patients adds layers of complexity to the pharmaceutical P2P process, necessitating stringent quality standards and compliance with numerous regulations.

Supplier Relations

Compared to other industries, like mechanical engineering or construction, pharmaceutical companies tend to work with less suppliers. Many collaborate with only a few big suppliers as stringent quality and supply chain transparency requirements make supplier selection a meticulous and vital process.

Navigating the Procurement of Dangerous Goods

Handling dangerous substances is an inherent part of pharmaceutical procurement. Those dangerous goods, potentially lethal substances and medications along with ampoules, other items and packages often come in batches. These batches must meet strict requirements and standards to make sure that only safe medication is procured and sold. As a result, transparency, reliability, and clean data on the procured goods are at the heart of a functioning P2P process in pharmaceuticals.

Overcoming Pharmaceutical Procurement Challenges

The challenges in pharmaceutical procurement are manifold, but with the integration of intelligent automation technologies, these hurdles can be transformed into opportunities for efficiency, innovation, and safety.

Data Management

A key challenge lies in gathering and storing vast amounts of information, which must be readily accessible when needed. This includes data from certificates, documentation, information about raw materials, and risk assessments. Crucial documents in the pharmaceutical P2P process, such as certificates, delivery notes, and documentation of incoming goods, often in multiple batches, as well as sample documentation, must be meticulously managed.

Document Processing

Swift and efficient document processing is essential to maintain flexibility and agility. Implementing operational processes that ensure both transparency and stability, while also allowing for planning and adaptation to unforeseen changes, is vital.

Data Quality

Teams often grapple with manual data entry, where even minor details on certificates, orders, and other documents can significantly impact workflows. Thus, data quality becomes paramount. Utilising automated data entry solutions can help minimise human error, enhancing accuracy.

Archiving

In pharmaceutical procurement, archiving data is crucial but can be extremely time-consuming when performed manually. As a result, procurement teams may find their time for other tasks limited. Adopting cloud-based storage solutions can offer a secure and accessible means to improve the archiving process.

Discover in our blog article “Automate to Innovate: Automating Incoming Goods in Pharmaceutical Procurement” how automation helps procurement teams in the pharmaceutical industry to overcome challenges and to make their operational processes reliable, transparent and efficient.  

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January 19, 2024
Accounts Payable Whitepaper: From Manual Handling to Intelligent Automation

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Elevating Accounts Payable: From Manual Handling to Intelligent Automation

As businesses continue to scale and evolve, the accounts payable (AP) department faces increasing complexities in managing an ever-growing volume of invoices, purchase orders, and payment documents. While traditional automation solutions have provided some relief by streamlining certain aspects of the AP process, they often fall short in today’s fast-paced, data-intensive business landscape. With the advent of more sophisticated technologies, there is a compelling need to go beyond basic automation to more intelligent, integrated solutions that can adapt to the nuanced demands of modern accounts payable operations.

As we navigate through the intricacies of document processing, this whitepaper will shed light on the limitations of traditional automation solutions, and how they often fail to meet expectations. We will then introduce Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) as a game-changing solution, illustrating how it combines the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and orchestration to dramatically improve
efficiency and accuracy. Discover how the Netfira Platform can transform accounts payable from manual handling to intelligent automation.

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January 17, 2024
The Benefits of a SaaS IDP Solution for Procurement

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The Benefits of a SaaS IDP Solution for Procurement

Advancements in technologies, such as IDP cloud solutions, continue to change the B2B world profoundly. In our last blog article, we showed how IDP cloud solutions combine the best of intelligent document processing (IDP) with the best of cloud computing. Cloud computing comprises a wide range of services that aim to meet various IT needs of an organisation. One service model that operates in the cloud is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Procurement departments relying on the power of intelligent document processing can benefit immensely from document automation in the cloud. Procurement software needs to be efficient, future-proof, and agile, which are distinct advantages of a SaaS IDP solution. 

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7 Main Advantages of SaaS IDP solutions for Procurement

1. Easy configuration

Unlike on-premise IDP solutions, SaaS IDP solutions allow users to connect to a ready-to-use system. As a result, companies do not require internal server infrastructure and implementation times are drastically reduced.   

2. No maintenance

The SaaS provider is responsible for maintenance and security-related aspects of the software, reducing the pressure on IT departments and providing users with peace of mind. 

3. Low costs

Companies do not have to install and run applications on their systems. This eliminates the need to invest in hardware and licensees and reduces the costs associated with maintenance and support. Users only pay for what they need and use. The initial setup costs for IDP SaaS solutions are also low, and implementation time is far quicker than for on-premise systems. 

4. High flexibility

IDP SaaS solutions afford users more flexibility than on-premise systems. For example, companies can subscribe to SaaS offers as required instead of purchasing licenses and installing the software on internal computers. In addition, SaaS IDP applications are provided over the web, which means users can access the software from any device or location, pending relevant permissions.

5. Easy scalability

Organisations can make greater use of individual services or functions if necessary. This is particularly important for companies growing rapidly or needing larger capacities for seasonal reasons. In addition, the Netfira Platform offers operational improvements along the P2P process, and users can easily configure more document types as the need arises.   

6. Work within a familiar environment

Teams can work within their familiar environment. There is no need to make disruptive changes to processes or systems as the system can adapt to the relevant requirements of the business. 

7. Relieve IT departments

As SaaS is web-based, users benefit from service providers updating the software automatically – often weekly or monthly. There is no ongoing requirement on IT to implement new releases or patches. Cloud-based document automation software means the IT department has an effortless involvement in the digitisation project, allowing them to focus on other tasks and duties.   

The Power of Intelligent Document Processing SaaS Solutions for Procurement

IDP cloud solutions – and above all IDP SaaS solutions – provide procurement with future-proof technology that enables the efficient automation of operational activities and processing of unstructured documents. Modern technologies and the demands of companies are changing rapidly. This unpredictability makes SaaS IDP solutions the right choice thanks to a higher flexibility and low costs compared to on-premise solutions. Considering all the advantages, SaaS IDP solutions prove to be a powerful alternative to on-premise solutions. Moreover, by automating procurement with a SaaS IDP solution, companies can concentrate on strategic business activities and achieve sustainable increases in operational efficiency.

Internal IT requirements of the Netfira Platform

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December 5, 2023
IDP Cloud Solutions – Combining the Best of Two Worlds

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IDP Cloud Solutions – Combining the Best of Two Worlds

In B2B organisations, almost every operational process produces documents. Teams use documents to order goods or services and pay for them, sell and ship goods, file claims and account for things. Finally, documents are needed to report on the ordering, paying, shipping and accounting of goods or services. Procurement and sales departments, in particular, need to handle a vast array of document formats such as paper document, scanned documents, PDFs and images. Traditional automation solutions relying on OCR or EDI help procurement departments to stay on top of processing all the B2B documents but both technologies come with limitations and disadvantages.

The good news is: Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) can overcome the limitations of traditional automation solutions. IDP solutions can not only identify but also interpret and analyse the data extracted from documents. IDP goes beyond simple automated data extraction to identify and understand key data points and classify the document type. It can then apply business rules to the extracted information, verify it and automatically export it into downstream systems.

Even better news: The strengths of IDP solutions can be brought to the next level if they are not implemented as on-premise solutions but as cloud solutions. Operated in the cloud, IDP can unlock its full potential and innovate the way companies process documents. Read on to discover how choosing an IDP cloud solution means combining the best of two worlds.

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What Is Intelligent Document Processing?

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is based on advanced technology to digitise and automate unstructured data from B2B documents. Because it combines artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing, IDP can mimic human abilities when it comes to identifying, contextualising and processing documents. IDP uses AI, ML and human-in-the-loop automation to convert unstructured data into structured and actionable data. By relying on orchestration, the coordination of single automated tasks into a seamless and unified workflow, intelligent document processing takes automation to the next level.  

Intelligent Document Processing in the Cloud

Intelligent Document Processing is a powerful approach for automating B2B document flows. The IDP solutions’ strengths are brought to the fore even more when they are operated in the cloud. In contrast to on-premise IDP solutions, cloud IDP solutions prove to be more agile, flexible and simple. Therefore, intelligent document processing in the cloud is going to reshape the automation of documents and B2B communication.

The Power of Cloud Solutions

Cloud computing is one of the most impactful technological advancements in corporate IT. Put simply, cloud computing refers to the availability of computing services over the internet. IDP solutions that operate in a cloud allow companies to lower operating costs, scale usage as required and reduce the need for IT teams to maintain software. Moreover, users benefit from customisation and flexibility as well as a high standard of security.  . 

The concept of cloud computing

Customisation: What Can Be Defined in the Cloud

The size:

Depending on current needs and the market situation, users can adjust storage capacities and computing power effortlessly at any time. As an advantage, companies do not have to invest in local IT infrastructure. One of the main benefits of a cloud-based solution is its high flexibility. Changes can be made at any time with the push of a button.

The content:

The content of the cloud can be defined individually. Users decide which data is in the cloud.

Control access and expand collaboration:

Procurement needs to collaborate with business partners and suppliers. The cloud allows users to determine which content suppliers, partners and employees can access.

The Cloud and Security

Cloud providers are responsible for security. The systems’ structures, resources and capacities are specifically designed for these requirements, making cloud-based solutions very secure and reliable. When choosing a service provider, it is essential to ensure that ISO guidelines are adhered to. Standardised norms such as ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and ISO 27018 define the handling and processing of highly sensitive data.

Service Models of Cloud Computing

The term ‘cloud computing’ is not just about one offer but comprises a wide range of services that aim to meet various IT needs of an organisation. Some companies provide customers with a cloud, while others, like Netfira, provide a service model that operates in a cloud. The three main service models are Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service. 

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS):

The service involves the provision of data centre infrastructure by a cloud provider. The resources are accessed via private or public networks. The components of the infrastructure provided include, for example, servers, computing and network capacities, communication devices such as routers or firewalls, storage space and systems for archiving and securing data. 

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS):

This can be understood as a link between classic infrastructure services (Infrastructure-as-a-Service, IaaS) and application software from the cloud (Software-as-a-Service, SaaS). Cloud providers provide customers with a platform on which they can develop, operate and manage applications without worrying about the necessary infrastructure.  

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS):

Customers can access offerings hosted by a service provider over the internet. Users access the applications via a browser. Companies that use SaaS applications can change the configuration settings and adapt the software to their specific requirements within certain parameters. Like with other cloud services, organisations typically pay a monthly or yearly fee for SaaS applications. SaaS providers usually bill applications based on specific usage parameters, such as the number of people using the applications or the number of transactions. The Netfira Platform, which automates procurement and sales processes, is offered as a SaaS solution. 

IDP Cloud Solutions: The Dream Team for Procurement

IDP works best when operated in the cloud. Combined with the flexibility, scalability and customisation options of cloud solutions, IDP can turn simple automation into intelligent automation and process structured as well as unstructured document reliably and quickly. Read more about intelligent document processing in the cloud and discover the 7 benefits of a SaaS IDP solution for procurement in our next blog post.

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November 30, 2023
Navigating Procurement’s Future with Intelligent Document Processing 

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Navigating Procurement’s Future with Intelligent Document Processing 

In today’s business landscape, efficient document processing provides a reliable foundation for business operations and underpins future growth. The global challenges faced by businesses in recent years have demonstrated that manual processing methods cannot cope when volumes rise or complexities increase. Simple automation solutions only address part of the issue, automating segments of workflows but failing to grasp the business logic unique to each transaction. What if there was an intelligent solution that doesn’t just automate, but truly understands and adapts to the logic of your documents? A complete tool that can automate documents with 100% accuracy, ensuring reliable operations through customisable workflows and informing decision making through accurate data? Discover how Intelligent Document Processing helps you grow with confidence.  

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Limitations of Traditional Document Processing  

Manual document comprehension and data entry, once the traditional norm, are now becoming untenable. Procurement teams spend valuable hours reading documents, cross-verifying data, and keying information into systems. This process is not only time-consuming and prone to human error, but also severely limits transparency.

Traditional automation solutions may assist with data capture, but they falter when faced with complex or unstructured document formats and supplier-specific business rules. The result? Incomplete automation of document workflows that isn’t reliable enough to enable downstream business outcomes. Moreover, many automation tools have long implementation times and are heavily reliant on IT resources. These limitations don’t just hamper procurement operations, they have a ripple effect that impacts everything from inventory management to supplier relationships, and ultimately the business’s ability to grow and scale efficiently. 

As businesses scale, so must their document processing capabilities. The goal is a future-proof solution that ensures accurate, efficient, and transparent operations, no matter the document volume. 

The Potential of Intelligent Document Processing: Orchestrating Procurement 

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) promises to revolutionise procurement, eliminating the challenges that plague manual processes and traditional automation. The distinguishing feature of IDP lies in its ability to go beyond automating isolated tasks and orchestrate entire workflows. Orchestration in IDP takes automation to the next level. While automation handles routine tasks, orchestration manages the flow of multiple tasks, making intelligent decisions based on context and rules. It ensures seamless, error-free operations, even in complex environments involving unstructured documents and varying formats. 

The Netfira Platform exemplifies the power of orchestration. Its processing capabilities, combined with inbuilt business logic—such as tolerances, data enrichment, data manipulation, and validation—elevate it from mere automation to complete workflow orchestration. 

To illustrate the benefit of IDP, consider the processing of order confirmations—a document type that typically varies in structure across suppliers. In a simple automation scenario, the system might correctly capture line items, but cannot handle variable attributes like units of measure or currency. However, with Netfira’s orchestration, the Platform understands the specific business context, identifies, and correctly maps these elements, enhancing data accuracy and reducing discrepancies. 

Document processing workflow with the Netfira Platform

Unlocking Efficiency with the Power of Intelligent Document Processing 

IDP provides enhanced control over data, improves transparency, and integrates seamlessly with downstream systems—features that are integral to successful procurement operations. Furthermore, IDP like Netfira’s offers another significant advantage—handling exceptions and edge cases. Traditional automation systems might stumble over exceptions, necessitating manual intervention. In contrast, Netfira’s Platform not only ensures a much lower rate of exceptions and errors but also flags these rare occurrences. When an exception or an edge case arises, Netfira empowers the user to resolve them effectively via a state-of-the-art user interface. This capability ensures business continuity, boosts operational resilience, and reduces dependencies on manual intervention or IT support. 

Error handling and exception management with the Netfira Platform

The Netfira Difference

The Netfira Platform extracts any attribute from any document type or format with 100% accuracy and integrates seamlessly with any downstream system, promising efficiency, and transparency in operations. The implementation of Netfira is straightforward, requires no additional effort for your business partners or change to their existing processes.

”There was no need to coordinate any process changes with our suppliers. Documents are simply sent to us via email and Netfira handles the rest” – Oliver Merle, Syntegon Technology GmbH.

However, Netfira isn’t just a platform; it’s your trusted partner in your digitisation journey. It goes beyond solving problems to providing robust support and ongoing improvements to its platform, ensuring your operations remain at the forefront of procurement technology. The promise of continuous innovation and robust, German-based customer support underscores Netfira’s commitment and its dedication to its customers .

Intelligent Document Processing with the Netfira Platform

The Future of Procurement with Netfira 

Digitisation is integral to the dynamic future of procurement. IDP is not a luxury but a necessity, a key driver in overcoming procurement challenges and maximising efficiency. As a leading player in the IDP landscape, Netfira is committed to empowering businesses to enhance their procurement efficiency and scale their operations. Netfira stands as a passionate expert in the field, partnering with businesses to navigate the complex terrain of procurement. By embracing Netfira and the power of Intelligent Document Processing, businesses can ensure their procurement operations are not just ready for the future but are shaping it. 

Case study: Global purchasing automation at Syntegon

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November 20, 2023
Webinar: Introduction to the Netfira Platform
Webinar

Introdution to the Netfira Platform

In this webinar, we’ll guide you through:
- The transformative power of Netfira in automating B2B transactional document processing.
- The blueprint of an optimised workflow using Netfira.
- A deep dive into our Platform’s intuitive business logic.
- A walkthrough of exception management within the Netfira Portal.
- Seamless supplier connections using the Netfira Onboarding App.
At this stage, the webinar is only available in German. If you would like to preview the Platform in English, please request a demo.

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Find out how our Platform automates and improves your document transactions. Access the introductory video now!
October 5, 2023
How Automation Technology Empowers the Procurement of the Future

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How Automation Technology Empowers the Procurement of the Future

In our last blog post, we looked at five trends which are currently redefining the procurement landscape. In this article, we delve into the future of procurement, exploring how automation technology will reshape this critical business function. The procurement sector stands at the cusp of an exciting future, marked by innovation, digitalisation, and a strategic focus on value creation. The function of procurement will extend beyond transactional activities to become a strategic business partner as well as an influential driver of competitive advantage and business growth. What role will automation technology play in this development? How will sophisticated automation solutions shape the future of procurement and empower procurement to meet emerging requirements and exploit new opportunities?

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 The Future of Procurement: New Requirements and Chances

Risk mitigation, sustainability, ethics, and innovative partnerships are key factors poised to shape the future of the procurement sector. In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, effective risk management will be more crucial than ever. Future procurement strategies will need to be resilient, agile, adaptable, capable of mitigating risks and capitalising on opportunities in a fluctuating global environment. As ESG factors will be even more prominent, procurement strategies will need to fully integrate sustainability. This will involve assessing suppliers’ ESG performance, prioritising sustainable sourcing, and contributing to the organisation’s overall sustainability goals. Ethical considerations in procurement will have gained more prominence in the future. This involves ensuring fair trade, preventing corruption, and promoting diversity and inclusion in the supply chain. Moreover, the future of procurement will see a shift towards more collaborative and innovative supplier relationships. By leveraging suppliers’ expertise and innovation capabilities, procurement will drive value creation and competitive advantage for the organisation. 

Automation Technology Defines the Procurement of the Future

Document processing is the backbone of all procurement processes. The efficiency and accuracy of document processing are central to the overall resilience and effectiveness of the procurement processThe question of whether data from documents is extracted and processed correctly is crucial, because data quality in procurement significantly affects downstream processes within an organisation and the supply chain.

Automation technology is the means to meet all the environmental, social, ethical and economic requirements mentioned above and to successfully transform procurement and its role along the supply chain. Automation technology will empower the procurement of the future. It will define how procurement professionals will work and how procurement processes will look like as it will enhance operational efficiency, reduce manual activities and therefore errors, and enable a more strategic use of human resources.

These Automation Technologies Will Shape Procurement in the Future

Artificial Intelligence

Through artificial intelligence (AI), software solutions are equipped with intellectual capacities by mirroring human abilities like reasoning and learning from past experiences. AI-driven automation tools can learn and improve with every data set they process. They remember and identify rules and patterns and get more precise over time.

By relying on AI-powered automation solutions, procurement will be able to unlock efficiency in its B2B document processing. Documents such as purchase order confirmations, customer orders or invoices can be processed quickly without any manual workload and the highest data accuracy.

Human-in-the-Loop Automation

Human-in-the-loop (HITL) automation refers to automated systems that integrate and enable human judgement. HITL automation solutions harness the power of AI and automation, for they combine the speed and accuracy of machines with human intuition and critical thinking. In the training phase of AI models, HITL automation plays a central role. The HITL approach enables AI to gain experience through constant access to data and refining human feedback, thus making it more accurate over time. 

HITL automation will be indispensable for all document processing activities. Processing B2B documents automatically, involves tasks like data extraction, document classification, the interpretation of information, the comparison of data, the definition of tolerances and the handling of exceptions or deviations. Human-in-the-loop automation technology allows humans to intervene in situations where critical thinking, interpretation skills and human judgement are needed. As a result, buyers are always in control of all automated workflows and only support the automatic document processing process when their expertise is truly needed.

Intelligent Document Processing and Orchestration

Intelligent Document Processing leverages cutting-edge technologies to set new benchmarks in automation.By combining artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, IDP mimics human abilities to identify, contextualise, interpret and process documents. As a result, IDP solutions can convert unstructured data of B2B documents into structured and actionable data.

Orchestration plays a central role in Intelligent Document Processing. By relying on orchestration, IDP takes automation to the next level as it goes beyond the automation of single and independent tasks. With orchestration, several different automated tasks are coordinated into a seamless and unified workflow.

By harnessing the potential of IDP and orchestration, procurement will be able to transform its operational processes significantly. Thanks to orchestration, the procurement of the future will benefit from complete automation and move beyond the constraints of basic automation. In document processing, this is particularly valuable when it comes to managing edge cases, errors and exceptions or regarding the processing and matching of data from various document sets such as purchase orders and order confirmations.

Automation Technology is the Key to the Procurement of the Future

Automation technology will empower the procurement of the future. Advanced automation solutions will streamline the entire data extraction, comparison, and validation processes, making manual tasks obsolete. By automating B2B document processing with intelligent automation solutions which harness the power of AI, human-in-the-loop automation and orchestration, non-value-adding, time-consuming and error-prone manual tasks will become a thing of the past. As the procurement process will be streamlined, made more resilient and agile, procurement will transform into a reliable strategic business partner and value creation driver.

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September 1, 2023