The steel industry with its production and trade is a traditional one, with companies whose foundations often date back half a century or more. Successful existence in the market over this time has to do with the reputation of the company and thus to a considerable extent with the impeccable material quality of the products. As the be-all and end-all, steel producers cannot afford to make any compromises here. Huge production halls and even larger warehouses with thousands of products on gigantic shelves for distribution are commonplace. The list of steel products such as high-quality sheets, coil or plates, wires, various pipes, flanges, threaded fittings, and industrial valves is almost endless. So is the list of documents to be processed, such as packing lists and quality certificates that come with the products and raw materials.
ISO certifications form the physical backbone for industrial companies
Central documents, besides the certificates of analysis, which are attached to the products in the trade and are of high significance for the buyer. They make up the ISO certifications in production. They also distinguish a company and its products and serve, among other things, as proof of impeccable material quality. ISO certifications are essential for the development and competitiveness of a company. Various requirements must be met. For example, a company must be able to document its processes at each stage of production in order to obtain ISO certificates. Learn how ISO requirements are met with the integration of intelligent, AI-based OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and its highly accurate, automated document capture and processing in this article.
Flawless material quality and proof in the form of quality certificates are an important part of the path to ISO certifications
Flawless material quality as the be-all and end-all
In order to be able to fulfill the process documentation of the various products in accordance with ISO requirements, a key point is the traceability of the processes and the raw materials processed in the products. This is where the problem starts for many companies: The more products are manufactured and distributed, the more documents such as packing lists (containing detailed information about the raw materials) and quality certificates have to be recorded and processed. If this is done in manual work processes via telephone, e-mail or fax, then these are highly inefficient. As a result, there are delays to verify ISO certifications. To get around this, automated process workflows with a high level of transparency are required.
To be able to trace the raw materials, high transparency is required
Transparency in process documentation is crucial
Transparency in this case means that all products can be traced back and verified throughout all production stages. The packing lists serve as a source of transparent traceability, the quality certificates as proof of perfect material quality. In order to achieve the efficient capture and processing of these documents necessary for ISO certifications, a different approach, namely automated, is required. The automation of document capture and processing is done with intelligent, AI-based OCR (Optical Character Recognition). And it does so with state-of-the-art performance and precision that is second to none! How the solution design works with intelligent, AI-based OCR is shown below:
- Relevant data, structured or unstructured, is received and captured automatically
- The intelligent, AI-based OCR takes care of quality improvement and page separation
- With classification, numerous packing lists are separated from the various quality certificates
- Automated extraction of all relevant data from the quality certificates and packing lists follows
- What remains is structured and actionable data, which is available for checking ISO certifications in real-time
- If there are ambiguities in data, the human in the loop comes into play, can verify and initiate the necessary steps
With the intelligent, AI-based OCR, the data from the packing lists and quality certificates is structured and further usable in no time – perfect for ISO certifications
Achieve ISO certifications faster with intelligent, AI-based OCR
With the simple and quick integration of intelligent, AI-based OCR into an existing ERP system, steel producers will be able to check numerous boxes in the future, around ISO certifications and more:
- A delivered order can be automatically matched with the raw materials used for production (traceability) and their quality certificates (material quality)
- Easy scalability, even with a huge amount of products and documents
- Thanks to the real-time process work, it is possible to obtain the ISO certifications faster
- ISO certifications are an important building block for the development and competitiveness of a company
- Last, but not least, thanks to intelligent, AI-based OCR, manual processes can finally be thrown to the wind and valuable employee resources can be used for more essential work
With intelligent, AI-based OCR, ISO requirements are achieved in an efficient period of time and ISO certifications, which are so important for companies, are secured.
