Intelligent Document Processing at Scale
European automotive manufacturer automates 200,000+ monthly documents with Azure Form Recognizer and OpenAI, achieving 99.2% accuracy and €1.8M annual savings.
Executive Summary
Client Profile
Industry: Automotive Manufacturing
Company: European Tier-1 Supplier
Size: 12,000 employees, 28 facilities
Revenue: €3.2 billion annually
Project Timeline
Duration: 5 months (Mar-Jul 2023)
Pilot: 2 document types, 1 facility
Rollout: 18 document types, 28 facilities
Go-Live: August 2023
Project Scope
Documents: 200,000+ per month
Types: Invoices, POs, BOLs, Certificates
Languages: 12 European languages
Integration: SAP ERP, SharePoint, Dynamics
Business Challenge
The Problem
Manual processing of 200,000+ monthly supplier documents across 28 European facilities created massive inefficiencies, errors, and delayed payments.
Operational Inefficiency
85 FTE employees
Dedicated to manual data entry from scanned invoices, purchase orders, and shipping documents
12-18 minutes per document
Manual extraction of 40-80 fields per document type
5-7 days processing backlog
During month-end closing and high-volume periods
Quality Issues
12% error rate
Typos, incorrect amounts, wrong GL codes, mismatched PO numbers
€340K annual reconciliation costs
Finance team resolving discrepancies and supplier disputes
18% late payment penalties
Missed early payment discounts (2/10 net 30 terms)
Financial Impact
€4.8M annual labor costs
85 FTE × €56K average fully-loaded cost
€1.2M missed discounts
Lost 2% early payment discounts on €60M annual spend
€280K late fees
Supplier penalties for delayed invoice processing
Strategic Constraints
No scalability
Cannot support business growth (15% YoY) without proportional headcount increase
Limited audit trail
Compliance risk for ISO 9001, IATF 16949 automotive quality standards
Employee dissatisfaction
32% annual turnover in data entry roles due to repetitive work
Solution Architecture
Technspire implemented an intelligent document processing (IDP) platform combining Azure Form Recognizer for OCR and field extraction with Azure OpenAI GPT-4 for classification, validation, and exception handling.
Document Ingestion & Classification
Azure Logic Apps monitors email inboxes, SharePoint folders, and FTP servers for incoming documents. Azure OpenAI GPT-4 analyzes document structure and content to classify into 18 document types (invoices, purchase orders, bills of lading, quality certificates, customs declarations, etc.).
Key Tech: Azure Logic Apps, Azure Blob Storage, Azure OpenAI GPT-4, Custom Vision API
Result: 99.7% classification accuracy across 18 document types and 12 languages
Intelligent OCR & Field Extraction
Azure Form Recognizer (custom models trained on 50,000+ historical documents) extracts structured data: vendor details, line items, amounts, dates, PO numbers, GL codes. Azure OpenAI validates extracted fields, performs cross-field logic checks (e.g., line items sum to total), and corrects OCR errors using context understanding.
Key Tech: Azure Form Recognizer (custom models), Azure OpenAI GPT-4, Azure Cognitive Search
Result: 99.2% field-level accuracy, 40-80 fields extracted per document in 3-5 seconds
Business Rules & Validation
Azure Functions (.NET 8) apply 150+ business rules: PO matching, vendor validation, duplicate detection, GL code mapping, tax calculations. Azure OpenAI handles ambiguous cases using natural language understanding (e.g., interpreting "Net 30 EOM" payment terms, identifying partial shipments).
Key Tech: Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, Azure OpenAI, Azure Monitor
Result: 94% straight-through processing (STP) with no human intervention
Exception Handling & Human-in-the-Loop
6% of documents flagged for review (low confidence scores, missing PO numbers, amount discrepancies) are routed to a custom React/TypeScript web portal. Azure OpenAI provides intelligent suggestions and explanations to reviewers. Machine learning feedback loop continuously improves models.
Key Tech: Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript, Azure App Service, Azure OpenAI, Power BI
Result: 2.5 minutes average review time (vs 15 minutes manual entry), 85% reduction in manual work
ERP Integration & Analytics
Approved documents are automatically posted to SAP ERP via RFC/BAPI integration. Real-time Power BI dashboards track STP rates, error types, processing times, cost savings, and vendor compliance across all 28 facilities.
Key Tech: SAP .NET Connector, Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration, Power BI, Azure Data Lake
Result: Real-time visibility, 100% audit trail, compliance with ISO 9001 and IATF 16949
Implementation Timeline
Discovery & Design
Document type analysis, 50K historical document collection, Azure architecture design, SAP integration planning, security & compliance review (GDPR, ISO 27001)
Model Training & Development
Form Recognizer custom model training (18 document types), GPT-4 prompt engineering, business rules implementation, React review portal development, SAP integration coding
Pilot Testing
2-facility pilot (Germany, Poland), 2 document types (invoices, POs), 10,000 documents processed, model accuracy tuning, user acceptance testing, 99.1% STP achieved
Full Rollout & Training
28-facility deployment (phased by region), all 18 document types enabled, 200 users trained, change management, cutover from legacy OCR system, hypercare support
Measurable Results (First 12 Months)
Operational Efficiency
Quality & Accuracy
Financial Impact
Business Outcomes
Technology Stack
Azure AI & Machine Learning
- Azure Form Recognizer: Custom models for 18 document types
- Azure OpenAI GPT-4: Classification, validation, NLU
- Azure Cognitive Search: Document indexing and retrieval
- Azure Machine Learning: Continuous model retraining
Application Development
- Next.js 15 + React 19: Exception review portal
- TypeScript: Type-safe business logic
- Azure Functions (.NET 8): Business rules engine
- Azure Logic Apps: Workflow orchestration
Data & Integration
- Azure SQL Database: Metadata and audit logs
- Azure Blob Storage: Document archival (hot/cool tiers)
- SAP .NET Connector: ERP integration (RFC/BAPI)
- Azure Data Lake: Analytics data warehouse
Security & Operations
- Azure Key Vault: Secrets and certificate management
- Azure Monitor: Application insights and logging
- Azure AD B2C: Multi-factor authentication
- Power BI: Real-time dashboards and KPIs
The ROI exceeded our expectations. We recovered the entire investment in 4 months through early payment discounts alone. But the real value is strategic - we can now scale operations 40% without hiring, our finance team focuses on analysis instead of data entry, and we have 100% audit compliance. Technspire's Azure AI expertise transformed accounts payable from a cost center to a competitive advantage.
Marcus Weber
CFO, European Automotive Manufacturer
€3.2B Revenue • 12,000 Employees
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