EDMS for Manufacturing Manufacturing generate and rely on large volumes of documents, records, and approvals that must be accurate, traceable, and audit-ready. Shared drives, email threads, and paper files quickly become unmanageable as teams, sites, and regulations grow. Industry Context: Document Management in Manufacturing Without a structured electronic document management system, Manufacturing struggle with scattered files, version confusion, slow approvals, and difficulty proving compliance during internal or external audits. Common Document Management Challenges in Manufacturing Version Control and Traceability Teams need confidence they are using the latest approved document. Manual naming and email-based reviews make it easy to lose track of changes, approvals, and historical records. Slow and Manual Approval Workflows Policies, SOPs, and critical records often require multi-step reviews and re-approvals. When these workflows run on email and spreadsheets, deadlines are missed and accountability is unclear. Audit Readiness and Compliance Risk Reconstructing who changed what, when, and why is difficult with file shares and paper. This increases the risk of findings during audits and inspections. Typical Document Types in Manufacturing Typical documents include policies, SOPs, work instructions, quality records, contracts, forms, logs, training materials, and reports that must be controlled, approved, distributed, and retained according to defined rules. Manufacturing Document Workflows and Lifecycle A strong document lifecycle in Manufacturing starts with creation or change requests, moves through drafting, review, and approval, and ends with controlled publication, training or acknowledgement, periodic review, and final archival or disposal. KPIs That Matter for Manufacturing Important KPIs include review and approval cycle time, number of overdue document tasks, audit findings linked to documentation, version error incidents, and time to retrieve critical records during audits. How EDMSNext Supports Manufacturing EDMSNext helps Manufacturing centralize documents, standardize approval workflows, and maintain full audit trails of changes and access, so teams can reduce errors and stay audit-ready. Learn more on our Features page. Explore practical implementations in our Use Case Library and stay updated via our LinkedIn Showcase. Why do Manufacturing need an EDMS? Manufacturing need an EDMS to replace shared drives and email with controlled versioning, structured approvals, and fast retrieval of audit-ready records across teams and locations. For consultation or onboarding assistance, visit our Contact Us page.