case Study | Manufacturing
Automating Supplier Document Processing.
Our Solution automates the reading, matching, and validation of procurement and quality documents, keeping materials, payments, and production moving without delay.
Automated procurement & quality documents
< 2 min
to process a 5-page document set, across 200+ daily deliveries
< 5%
of documents flagged for manual attention
10 → 3
back-office staff needed for document handling
200 deliveries a day. Every one on paper.
Every production run in manufacturing rides on a mountain of paperwork: purchase orders, supplier invoices, delivery notes, and quality certificates that must all match before materials can be received, paid for, and released to the shop floor. When that matching is done by hand, procurement and quality teams become the bottleneck of the entire plant.
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To receive and release incoming materials, data has to be collected and cross-checked from Purchase Orders, Supplier Invoices, Delivery Notes, Packing Slips, and Material Test Certificates (MTCs). Each supplier sends these in a different format, from PDFs and scans to spreadsheets and photographed paper documents, and every line item must be manually verified against the original order.
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For this manufacturing customer, the scale made manual processing unsustainable: more than 200 deliveries arriving every day, each with its own set of documents to check, match, and enter into the ERP. A team of 10 back-office staff spent their days on data entry and three-way matching (PO, delivery, invoice), and errors that slipped through, a mismatched quantity or an overlooked material grade, led to wrong materials entering production, blocked invoices, and failed quality audits.
01 Solution
Read, matched, and posted before the truck leaves.
Our Solution was integrated with the manufacturer's ERP and supplier portal. Suppliers submit documents through the portal or by email, exactly as they always have; no change is required on their side.
01
Fetch.
Our system automatically retrieves incoming documents from the supplier portal, shared mailboxes, and scanned uploads.
02
Classify.
Each document is intelligently identified and classified by type: Purchase Order, Supplier Invoice, Delivery Note, Packing Slip, Material Test Certificate, and more.
03
Extract.
Part numbers, quantities, unit prices, batch and heat numbers, material grades, and test results are extracted from each document with no manual data entry.
04
Match & validate.
Extracted data is cross-checked against the purchase order in the ERP: quantities, prices, and material specifications verified, certificate values validated against required standards. Clean documents flow straight through; discrepancies are flagged instantly for manual attention.
05
Post.
Validated data is pushed back into the ERP, releasing goods receipts, approving invoices for payment, and attaching quality records to the correct batch for full traceability.
What was once a manual, multi-document reconciliation exercise now happens automatically in the background, with staff stepping in only to resolve true discrepancies.
02 The impact
< 2 minutes
to process a 5-page document set. Deliveries are matched and posted almost as soon as documents arrive, eliminating receiving and payment backlogs across 200+ daily deliveries.
< 5% flagged
The rare exceptions are identified faster than ever and automatically forwarded for manual attention, so nothing bad slips into the ERP.
10 → 3 staff
The remaining team focuses solely on exceptions and supplier relationships instead of repetitive data entry.
Full traceability
Every quality certificate is digitized, validated, and linked to its batch, making audits and recalls faster and airtight.
Why Sentient Concepts Solutions?
Supplier documentation doesn't follow a template; every vendor, material, and certification body formats it differently. An IDP system is built to handle that variability, reading and understanding documents the way an experienced procurement or quality specialist would, but at machine speed and scale.
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For manufacturers, that means fewer bottlenecks at the receiving dock, cleaner data in the ERP, and a production line that never waits on paperwork.