What is M-Files? 

M-Files is a leading document automation platform. As a metadata-based platform, it organizes documents based on what they are, not where they are stored, enabling employees to find what they’re looking for right away. It also includes automated document creation and streamlined document editing capabilities.

3 Internal Challenges for Manufacturers 

Here are three of the biggest internal challenges that manufacturers face—and how M-Files can address these issues.

•  Slow, Error-Prone Manual Processes

One of the biggest challenges any company will face is time-consuming manual processes. Manufacturers are no different! When all your document creation or editing processes are manual, you are at far greater risk of human errors such as inaccurate information, non-standard document design, and losing documents. Emailing new document versions back and forth, for example, can easily result in different people having different “final” documents.

M-Files addresses this challenge through automated workflows. With M-Files, you can create a document from a template with a simple questionnaire. You can send a document through an automated approval process within the software, eliminating the need to email a document to anyone. Employees can also edit a singular version of a document within M-Files while maintaining strict version control.

• Information Silos

Information silos can cause high inefficiency in a manufacturing business—but many employees aren’t aware these silos exist. Each department could be working well individually while still unknowingly hindering each other’s work. As the saying goes, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” A company that falls victim to information silos will see things like access control issues, duplicates, version confusion, and un-integrated software solutions.

M-Files can help break down information silos by creating definitive versions of each document that any department creates. It also allows you to automate naming, organization, and classification of documents, ensuring standard practices across the entire company. When everyone has one “source of truth,” clear communication and efficiency will result.

• Over-reliance on Individuals

Manufacturers have strict quality control and regulatory compliance tasks to complete on a regular basis. Unfortunately, without a document automation system, the responsibility for quality control and compliance often relies too heavily on individual diligence.

For example, document access and sharing rules are applied manually, which relies on one person always having accurate information of each person’s role and employment status. Quality and compliance controls are often based on one person following a checklist. Audit trails break down in email chain upon email chain.

While M-Files cannot guarantee quality or compliance, it vastly simplifies these processes. It allows company leaders to automate permissions based on document type, process phase, and more. It also automates compliance processes such as version control and approval chains, allowing for clear audit trails.