/ 01 ISO audit cycle
Audits never wait
ISO 9001, IATF 16949, AS9100, ISO 14001, ISO 45001. Audit cycles are continuous; the evidence pack has to be assemblable on the day, not produced over six weeks.
07 Industry · Manufacturing
Tribal knowledge retires. Systems do not have to.
A senior engineer leaves and takes a hand-written logbook’s worth of shop-floor intelligence with them. A supplier-consolidation programme stalls because the contract estate is an unsearchable fileshare. An Industry 4.0 programme stalls at the document layer. We capture the handbook before it retires — and wire it into the workflow the people who are still on the floor actually use.
Where the handbook is the bottleneck.
We work with discrete and process manufacturers, tier-1 automotive suppliers, aerospace, industrial equipment and consumer goods producers — across UK, European and Asian plants.
Our engagements concentrate where manufacturing meets compliance (QMS / ISO), where information flow crosses the desk-to-floor boundary, and where legacy drawings and handbooks need to stop being the bottleneck.
Capture the handbook before it retires. Wire it into the workflow on the floor.
Trusted in this industry
Discrete manufacturers (UK, EU, Asia)
Tier-1 automotive suppliers
Aerospace
Industrial equipment
Consumer goods producers
Process manufacturers
The briefs nobody else says yes to.
Six structural problems we hear repeatedly from manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers — and the honest answer to each.
/ 02 Product safety
Regulated product, regulated record
UKCA, CE, FDA 21 CFR 820 for medical devices. REACH, RoHS documentation. The compliance trail has to follow the part across the supply chain.
/ 03 Tribal knowledge
Senior engineers retire
A logbook’s worth of shop-floor intelligence walks out with each retirement. The handbook lives in one head; the workflow loses fidelity.
/ 04 Supplier estate
Supplier consolidation needs the records
Supplier contracts, certificates of conformance, non-conformance records — in fileshares no one can search. The consolidation programme stalls at the document layer.
/ 05 Shop-floor logs
Handwritten logs still in circulation
Shop-floor handwritten logs, checklists and handover notes. The data the OEE dashboard needs is in a notebook on a desk on the floor.
/ 06 Uneven coverage
Five systems, none of them complete
ERP, MES, CMMS, QMS and PLM systems with uneven document coverage. Engineering drawing archives that predate the current CAD.
What we ship into publishing operations.
Three workstreams that run together. The output is one connected manufacturing operating layer — not a stack of pilots.
01 Custom Software
Shop-floor surfaces and supplier portals
Shop-floor apps. Supplier portals. QMS front-ends. Predictive-maintenance and anomaly-detection models. QA copilots.
- Shop-floor apps — SOP at the right station, in the right moment.
- Supplier portals — document, certify, track.
- QMS front-ends — audit-pack assembly on demand.
- Predictive maintenance — with engineering documents as inputs.
- QA copilots — non-conformance routed, not piled.
02 AI + Human-in-the-loop
Non-conformance, contracts and shop-floor handwriting
Non-conformance / CAPA routing. Supplier-contract intelligence. Handwritten-log digitisation. SOP lookup assistants on the shop floor.
- NCR / CAPA routing — agentic, with engineer on the gate.
- Supplier-contract intelligence — clause libraries, renewal calendars.
- Handwritten-log digitisation — 91%+ accuracy, indexed for search.
- Shop-floor SOP assistants — the right work instruction in the right moment.
03 Integrations
Wired to ERP, MES, CMMS, QMS, PLM
SAP S/4HANA, Oracle, Infor, MES (Rockwell, Siemens), CMMS (IBM Maximo, IFS), QMS (ETQ, MasterControl), PLM (Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill).
- ERP — SAP S/4HANA, Oracle, Infor.
- MES / CMMS — Rockwell, Siemens, IBM Maximo, IFS.
- QMS — ETQ, MasterControl — audit-aware integration.
- PLM — Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill.
Actigen Manufacture — the manufacturing edition.
The Actigen module for discrete and process manufacturers, automotive, aerospace and industrial equipment. Reads and indexes the document estate your audit, production and supply teams rely on.
View the platformA·m
Actigen 2.0 · Module
Actigen Manufacture
A complete manufacturing document pipeline. SOPs, QMS and ISO records, maintenance and calibration logs, BoMs, supplier contracts, non-conformance and CAPA tracking, shop-floor handwritten logs, legacy handbook and drawing digitisation. Ships with ERP, MES and PLM integration already wired in.
QMS & ISO record extraction
Audit-ready at hours’ notice. ISO 9001, IATF 16949, AS9100 native.
Handwritten log digitisation
Shop-floor notebooks indexed and searchable. 91%+ accuracy.
Supplier-contract intelligence
Covenant monitoring, renewal calendars across the supplier estate.
Legacy drawing digitisation
Engineering archives that predate the current CAD — structured metadata, full-text search.
NCR / CAPA orchestration
Agentic routing with engineer on the gate; closure tracked; audit retained.
ERP / MES / PLM integration
SAP S/4, Oracle, MES (Rockwell/Siemens), PLM (Teamcenter, Windchill).
Real briefs, real corpora.
Six briefs we are running this year — each anchored in a specific operational outcome.
01
ISO / IATF audit readiness
Evidence packs on demand. The audit moves from a six-week project to a query the QMS team runs the morning of.
QMS · Audit · Compliance
Standards
ISO 9001 · IATF 16949 · AS9100
02
Supplier-consolidation programmes
Contract estate re-papered and searchable. The consolidation has the records it needs, not the records it could find.
Procurement · Supply chain
Outcome
-40 to -60% onboarding cycle
03
Shop-floor SOP assistants
Look up the right work instruction in the right moment. The assistant lives on the floor, not in the SharePoint.
Operations · Production
Outcome
SOP retrieval in seconds
04
Non-conformance & CAPA orchestration
Routing, escalation and closure tracked end-to-end. The customer NCR stops being a postcard from last quarter.
QA · Engineering · Customer ops
Inputs
Photos · Forms · Notes · Handwritten
05
Predictive maintenance
On assets with enough history. The engineering documents become training data; the maintenance schedule becomes evidence-based.
Maintenance · Reliability
Inputs
CMMS history · sensor data · drawings
06
Legacy handbook preservation
Retiring-workforce tribal knowledge captured. The handbook is searchable, the SOP is current, the floor keeps the institutional memory.
Engineering · L&D
Outcome
91%+ HWR indexing accuracy
What changes after the work ships.
Three outcomes consistently reported across manufacturing engagements. Per-engagement targets agreed in writing during Discover.
/ Audit-readiness
ISO audit moves to a query
Audit packs assemble in hours, not days. The cycle stops being a project and becomes a process.
- Audit-pack prep: days → hours
- Evidence assemblable on the day
- Lineage on every NCR / CAPA
/ Supply chain
Onboarding bends down
40–60% reduction in supplier onboarding cycle. Consolidation programmes ship because the records do.
- -40 to -60% onboarding cycle
- Contract estate searchable
- Clause libraries · renewal calendars
/ Knowledge
The handbook stays with the company
Tribal knowledge captured before retirement. The shop floor keeps the institutional memory.
- 91%+ accuracy on handwritten logs
- SOP retrieval in seconds on the floor
- Fewer NCRs reaching the customer
The numbers plant managers ask for.
Numbers that map to how plant, supply and quality leaders report up — boards, customers, auditors.
Days → hours
Audit-pack preparation time
Across recent engagements
-40 to -60%
Supplier onboarding cycle
After contract digitisation
Seconds
SOP retrieval on the shop floor
Shop-floor assistant deployments
91%+
Legacy handbook indexing accuracy
Handwritten content, post-loop
100%
Records with full lineage & audit trail
By default
99.1%
On-time delivery across SBL projects
Across 4,000+ projects
Typical ranges. Per-engagement targets agreed in writing during Discover.
Get a free consultation
Start the conversation
Have an IATF audit landing this quarter? Send a sample folder — and a measured pilot proposal will be returned within the working week.
One platform. Eight industry editions.
Actigen 2.0 is the agentic decision-loop framework underneath every engagement. Configurable per industry; consistent in lineage, governance and audit posture. Below: the full platform, with the Manufacturing module highlighted.
/ A·a
Actigen Archive
Libraries, archives, publishers. HWR, IIIF, MARC / EAD / METS, paleography console.
/ A·fActigen Finance
BFSI. KYC, claims triage, contract abstraction with audit-pack lineage.
/ A·hActigen Health
Healthcare. Clinical-note summarisation, IDMP, FHIR-mapped knowledge assistants.
/ A·eActigen Energy
Oil & gas, utilities. CSRD / SEC Climate drafting, asset-document agents, HSE.
/ A·mActigen Manufacture
Engineering knowledge, supplier IP, IATF audit drafting and CAD-aware retrieval.
/ A·uActigen Edu
NAAC narratives, ABET evidence packs, credential registries and reviewer copilots.
/ A·rActigen Research
Academic research operations — TEI, scholarly editions, critical apparatus, IIIF.
/ ePeParliament
Legislatures, registries, parliaments. Multi-script archives and lawmaking copilots.
"The same loop runs every brief. Only the domain model and the schema mapping change."
View the platformThe standards your auditor cares about.
Externally verifiable credentials and the standards every output is engineered to satisfy. The audit pack travels with the system.
/ Data security
Information security & privacy
External audits aligned to ISO 27001 and 27701. Encryption in transit and at rest, NCSC CAF posture.
- ISO 27001 · ISO 27701 (PIMS)
- UK-GDPR · GDPR · ICO
- NCSC CAF · key management
/ Regulatory
QMS & product-safety alignment
Manufacturing primary frameworks by default; aerospace and automotive sector frameworks supported.
- ISO 9001 · IATF 16949 · AS9100
- UKCA · CE · FDA 21 CFR 820
- REACH · RoHS
/ Governance
Document lineage & change management
Document lineage, change-management audit trails — the artefacts every customer auditor now expects.
- Per-record document lineage
- Change-management audit trails
- NCR / CAPA closure traceability
SBL credentials
100+ clients trusted
20+ years in regulated technology
4,000+ projects delivered
99.1% on-time
“We had two senior engineers retiring in the same quarter and forty years of shop-floor logbooks heading for the recycling. SBL captured the handbooks, indexed them at ninety-one percent on handwritten content, and wired the SOPs into the floor app. The institutional memory stays. The IATF audit moved from six weeks of preparation to a query.“Director of Manufacturing Industrial equipment manufacturer · shop-floor log digitisation
Send a brief. Receive a measured proposal.
Send a brief. Receive a measured pilot proposal within the working week.