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Solution · Operations & qualityEvery batch dossier complete, checked and signed before the pallet is ready to ship
Batch documentation and certificates of analysis
Lab results, process records and specifications are pulled together into a certificate and a batch dossier automatically; quality signs in Teams instead of assembling paperwork.
Executive summary
Finished goods sit in the dispatch bay because the certificate of analysis is still being typed.
We build a release flow that starts when the last result is authorised in the LIMS, not when someone has time to open a folder.
Release stops waiting for assembly: the dossier is ready minutes after the last result is authorised, so dispatch plans against the shift.
SharePoint dossier library with Microsoft Purview retention labels; ERP release record; customer portals
Business problem
Regulated production
A batch is not sold on its own. It travels with its evidence: analytical results, the process record, proof that the raw material was itself certified, and a statement that everything sits inside the agreed specification. Incoming goods departments refuse deliveries without that paperwork, and auditors expect it reconstructed on demand.
The data exists before the document does. Results are authorised in the LIMS, process parameters sit in the historian, batch and delivery data live in the ERP, supplier certificates arrive by email, and the specification that decides which numbers may appear is kept in a spreadsheet two people maintain. Assembling those sources into one signed document is clerical work with quality consequences, done by the people best qualified to be doing something else.
At scale the arithmetic turns against the plant. More products, more private-label customers with their own layout, more parameters requested by industrial buyers, and release becomes the slowest step in a fast process. Batches finished in the afternoon wait for the next signature round, while specialists who should be investigating deviations spend their mornings formatting documents.
How it works today
The pattern below is what we find in food, chemical and cosmetics plants before automation.
- WaitingThe finished batch waits for its last laboratory result before anyone opens the release folder
- PersonA specialist copies LIMS results into the customer's certificate template and retypes batch number, production date and shelf life
- PersonProcess records are gathered by hand: historian printouts, the cleaning record from the shift folder, the raw-material certificate from an email
- SystemValues are checked against a specification spreadsheet, one row per product and customer, kept outside the quality system
- WaitingThe certificate joins a stack the quality manager signs once a day; batches finished later go out the next morning
- PersonIt is emailed or uploaded to a customer portal, and the dossier is saved to a network folder named by product and month
- Risk of errorA missing page, a superseded template or an old specification version surfaces at the customer's incoming goods desk, or in an audit months later
Why the current process costs more than it appears
The most expensive part of this process has no cost line.
- Release time is set by documentation, not by the laboratory. The batch is ready hours before the paperwork, and the plant pays for the gap in warehouse space, missed truck slots and customer patience.
- Each customer layout adds a template, a parameter set and a rule about what may be shown. Twelve of them do not mean twelve times the work; they mean a library only two people fully understand.
- Mistakes surface at the customer. A wrong batch number or a missing cleaning record puts the delivery on hold and opens a complaint that costs quality and commercial time to close.
- Version control is informal. A specification revised in the quality system does not reach the spreadsheet that drives the certificate, and the gap shows up when an auditor samples that batch.
- Cover is thin. With the two specialists who know the customer requirements away, release slows for everyone and the plant ships late or ships on a promise to send the certificate later.
Cost of inaction
Wrapped pallets waiting on paperwork are the quietest cost a plant carries. Batches keep going out a little later than they could, and the cost sits where it is easiest to ignore: warehouse days, re-booked transport, complaints closed without anyone counting the hours. Each new private-label customer adds a template and a few minutes to every batch that touches it.
The exposure that grows quietly is evidential. Rules that live in a spreadsheet and in two people's memories are hard to demonstrate to an auditor and impossible to hand over cleanly. When a customer challenges a value on a certificate issued eighteen months ago, the answer has to be reconstructed rather than retrieved.
A plausible organisation with realistic proportions. The figures are there to be recalculated on your data; they are not a client result.
A European food ingredients producer: three plants, around 700 employees, a mid-market ERP for production and deliveries, a LIMS in the laboratories, line data in a process historian, Microsoft 365 E3.
1,600 released batches a month across roughly 240 active products; about 45% go to customers with their own certificate layout, around 20% carry an extra document such as an allergen statement or the raw-material certificate.
Four quality specialists build certificates and dossiers in Word from LIMS results, historian printouts and shift records, check them against a specification spreadsheet, and pass them to the quality manager for signature before dispatch releases the pallets.
Roughly 25 minutes of assembly and checking per batch, concentrated in the morning, plus one signature round a day. Batches finished in the afternoon are released the next morning, whatever the laboratory said.
Robots read results, process records and batch data from the source systems, generate certificate and batch record from approved Word templates, check every value against the current specification, and put one release decision in front of quality in Microsoft Teams.
In the modelled case assembly disappears for batches that pass every check, release moves from the following morning to within the shift, and quality time shifts to deviations and specifications. These figures are a model, not a measurement.
Proposed solution
We build a release flow that starts when the last result is authorised in the LIMS, not when someone has time to open a folder. A robot collects everything belonging to the batch: analytical results, the process record from the historian, batch and delivery data from the ERP, the certificates of the raw materials consumed. It then applies the specification valid for that product, customer and production date, with the rounding and reporting rules that decide how each value is printed.
The documents are generated, not typed. Approved templates live in a SharePoint library under version control; the robot fills them through the UiPath Word activities and exports a PDF stamped with the template version. Quality receives one item in Microsoft Teams: an approval carrying the certificate, the dossier index and what was checked against which specification. The signature is applied through SharePoint eSignature, the signed copy returns to the library, and the audit events appear in Microsoft Purview. Where a validated quality management system already holds the electronic signature, the flow hands over to it.
Nothing here needs a language model and we have not put one in. Every value has one correct source and one rule to satisfy, and a certificate that is usually right is not a certificate. Any number on any page can be traced back to the rule that produced it.
UiPath Orchestrator queues, triggers and audit log; UiPath Word activities (Use Word File, Replace Text in Document, Save Document as PDF); UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft OneDrive & SharePoint, Microsoft Outlook 365 and Microsoft Teams; UiPath Action Center tasks in Microsoft Teams; Microsoft Teams Approvals app; SharePoint eSignature; Microsoft Purview retention labels
The batch record model mapping every certificate field to a source, the specification and reporting rules per product and customer, the completeness and limit checks, the versioned template library, the release flow with segregation of duties, customer distribution and the dispatch status view
Read-only interfaces to the LIMS, the process historian and ERP batch and delivery data, through a supported API, a reporting view or a scheduled export; upload to customer portals where none exists
How the automated process works
- AutomationAuthorisation of the last result in the LIMS starts the job; the robot gathers results, process records, batch master data and the raw-material certificates
- SystemEvery value is compared with the specification valid for that product, customer and production date, and supplier certificates are checked for validity
- AutomationCertificate and batch record are generated from the approved Word templates and exported as PDF, stamped with the template and specification version
- AutomationA complete, in-specification dossier reaches quality as one approval in Microsoft Teams with the PDF and the check list attached
- PersonQuality releases or rejects in Teams; the signature is applied through SharePoint eSignature and the signed file returns to the library
- AutomationThe dossier is filed on SharePoint with its retention label, the batch is marked released in the ERP, and the certificate goes to the customer
- PersonMissing results, values outside specification and expired supplier certificates become Action Center tasks in Teams, with the reason attached
Human-in-the-loop model
Automation handles
- Collecting results, process records, batch data and raw-material certificates for every released batch
- Applying the specification and reporting rules valid for that product, customer and production date
- Generating certificate and batch record from approved templates and filing them under the right retention label
- Distribution to customers and the live status view for dispatch and customer service
People decide
- The release itself: a named person in quality signs, and the signature stays theirs
- What happens to a value outside specification: concession, downgrade, block or investigation
- Whether a batch may ship against a customer's older specification version
- Changes to templates, parameters and specification rules, which remain owned by quality
Before and after
Systems and integrations
Everything below runs on licences and systems you already hold, or would need anyway.
Inputs
- LIMS results
- process historian records
- ERP batch, order and delivery data
- raw-material certificates on SharePoint
- customer specification records
Automation layer
- UiPath Orchestrator
- UiPath Robots
- UiPath Word activities
- UiPath Integration Service
- UiPath Action Center
Target systems
- SharePoint dossier library with Microsoft Purview retention labels
- ERP release record
- customer portals
Human touchpoints: Microsoft Teams Approvals for the release; Action Center tasks in Teams; SharePoint eSignature for the signature
Technologies used
collect batch data, run the checks, generate documents, queue the work, retry and log every step
Afill the approved templates and export signature-ready PDFs
Afile the dossier, send the certificate, post release status
Amissing results and out-of-specification values handled without leaving Teams
Athe quality release decision, with the dossier attached
Asignature through Microsoft's native provider, Adobe Acrobat Sign or DocuSign; signed copy back in the library, audit in Microsoft Purview
Aretention and disposition of batch records inside your tenant
Asources of results, process records and batch master data
CIllustrative economic model
A model, not a promise.
Twenty-five minutes is what assembly, checking and the handling around the signature add up to, averaged across simple certificates and dossiers with extra documents. It is an illustration for a mid-size regulated plant, not a measurement at a client. €28 is a fully loaded hourly rate for a quality specialist in Central Europe. We model capacity released, not headcount removed.
Run the numbers on your data
An illustrative estimate from your own inputs. It models released capacity; it is not a promise of savings.
Business benefits
- Release stops waiting for assembly: the dossier is ready minutes after the last result is authorised, so dispatch plans against the shift, not the quality queue.
- Certificates travel with the delivery instead of following it, which removes the most common reason for a hold at incoming goods.
- The correct specification is applied every time, including customer-specific versions and the revision valid on the production date.
- Missing results, expired raw-material certificates and superseded templates become exceptions rather than surprises at the customer.
- Quality time moves from formatting documents to investigating deviations and keeping specifications current.
- New customer formats and volume peaks are absorbed by adding a template and a rule, not a person.
The management view
- Release becomes a measured step: how long each batch waited, where, and which check stopped it.
- Every dossier carries a trail of what was checked against which specification version and who released it, which shortens audits and customer questionnaires.
- Adding a plant, a product family or a customer layout is a configuration change with a known effort, not a hiring decision.
- The process survives absence and turnover, because the rules live in the flow rather than in two people's experience.
Board-level KPIs
Security and governance
Trust in automation is built on the audit trail, not on a promise.
- Robots read from the LIMS, the historian and the ERP through accounts that can only read; nothing in the flow can change a result or a process record.
- The signature belongs to a person. SharePoint eSignature records who signed, when and which file version, and those events land in the Microsoft Purview audit log.
- Templates and specification rules are versioned artefacts owned by quality. A change is approved before use, and every document states the version it was built from.
- Segregation of duties is built in: the robot assembles and checks, a person releases. No configuration allows a batch outside specification to be released without a human decision.
- Run-time accounts are drawn from a vault, never held in a workflow; the documents, approvals and audit records they touch remain in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and the robots themselves work from the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud.
Why now
Customer requirements are fragmenting. Private-label and industrial buyers increasingly send their own specification and their own certificate layout, and each new format lands on the same few specialists.
European food and feed law obliges the business operator to maintain traceability (Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, in force since 21 February 2002). What customers and auditors test is whether the batch record can be produced complete and consistent, quickly.
The building blocks are ordinary now: template-based generation with the UiPath Word activities, an approval in Microsoft Teams, a native signature in SharePoint with a Purview audit trail. Meanwhile the modelled €18,667 a month goes on assembly work that no longer needs a person.
Relevant executive roles
Dispatch stops waiting on paperwork, and release becomes a lead time the plant can plan around.
The specification decides what is on the certificate, not a spreadsheet, and quality hours move from typing to investigation.
Certificates arrive with the delivery, so nobody chases documents for goods the customer already has.
Common questions and objections
It does not. The robot assembles, checks and presents; a named person in quality releases and signs, and that signature is recorded with the file version. What disappears is the assembly, not the decision.
That is the argument for taking them out of a spreadsheet. Specifications and templates become versioned records with an owner, and the rule applied is the one valid for that product, customer and production date.
Most laboratory systems offer a reporting database, a supported interface or a scheduled export; where none exists, the robot reads the application the way the laboratory does. We confirm which applies during discovery, before anything is committed.
When this is not the right solution
- Fewer than a couple of hundred batches a month with a single certificate layout, where a good template and a checklist cost less than an automation.
- Specifications exist only in two specialists' heads and in loose documents. That has to be resolved first, and it is a quality project rather than an automation one.
- Results are still written on paper in the laboratory. Digitise the result first; a robot cannot read a clipboard.
A question for the next management meeting
Can we name, without asking the plants, how many batches shipped late last quarter because of paperwork rather than product quality, and what those days cost us in warehouse space, transport slots and complaints?
Implementation approach
The first week looks the same at every client: we look at the data.
We deliver
- A dossier walk-through for one product family: layouts, parameter sources, specification rules and exception categories
- The batch record layer: read-only interfaces to LIMS, historian and ERP, mapped into one structure per batch
- A versioned template library in SharePoint, with generation and PDF export on the UiPath Word activities
- The check engine: completeness, specification limits, certificate validity, template and specification versions
- Release in Microsoft Teams with SharePoint eSignature, exception tasks in Action Center, filing and retention
- Customer distribution, the dispatch status view and a runbook for quality and customer service
We need from you
- Three months of released dossiers with the matching LIMS and ERP records
- A named owner in quality for specifications and templates
- Read accounts for the LIMS, the historian and the ERP, in test and production
- The current specification and customer requirement list, in whatever form it is held
Stages
Discovery
One product family end to end: layouts, sources, rules, exceptions, volumes
Design
Batch record model, check catalogue, release and signature flow, security model
Build
Interfaces, templates, generation and checks, Teams release and exception handling
Qualification
Replay of historical batches against the documents actually released, reviewed by quality
Go-live
One plant and one product family under supervision, then rollout and tuning
Departmental. Effort follows the number of certificate layouts, how machine-readable the specifications are today, and whether the LIMS and historian can be read through a supported interface.
If the certificate is a day late, nine finished pallets stay in the dispatch bay.
Send us one product family: the certificate layouts you produce, where each parameter comes from, and how the specification is held today. You get back a written assessment of what can be generated without a person and where the checks have to sit.
Try it on one product familyThe neighbouring process usually has the same problem
Containment, root cause, supplier 8D and effectiveness checks live in one spreadsheet and three mailboxes.
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