Reimagining FDS document generation for industrial automation
60 hours to 30 minutes document generation time
Improved FDS consistency and accuracy
Engineering teams freed for higher-value work
A major industrial automation company relied on manual processes to generate Functional Design Specification documents for energy sector projects. These documents often exceeded 200 pages, pulling from unstructured sources like historical FDS files, bills of materials, technical proposals, and product manuals. The process took over 60 hours per document, causing delays, inconsistencies, and significant strain on engineering resources.
Key challenges
Documents exceeding 200 pages with complex, unstructured data
Data pulled from multiple inconsistent sources
High error and inconsistency risk from manual processing
Over 60 hours spent per document
Project delays and rising resource costs
The solution
Intelligent data extraction
Azure Document Intelligence for data extraction
OCR for capturing tables, images, and text
Processes Excel files, BoMs, PDFs, and proposals
Data indexed in Azure AI Search for fast retrieval
Scalable document building
Semantic matching for contextually accurate content
GPT-4 refines and validates each document section
Multi-stage processing with content iteration
Auto-generates final FDS in formatted Word output
1
Data extraction
Azure Blob Storage and SQL as source systems
OCR and document processing models
Structured and unstructured data handling
2
FDS generation
Semantic retrieval from indexed data
GPT-4 for content refinement and validation
Real-time UI feedback and file access
Speed
Generation time cut from 60 hours to 30 minutes
Faster project timelines
Quicker turnaround on client deliverables
Consistency
Reduced errors across FDS sections
Standardized output quality
Minimized manual inconsistencies
Scalability
Higher FDS volume without added headcount
Handles complex, multi-source documents
Built to expand across regions and business units
Engineering productivity
Teams freed from repetitive document work
More time for client-specific iterations
Focus shifted to higher-value tasks
Future readiness
Phase 2 to handle new file formats and FDS scenarios
Custom models in development for all document types
Roadmap includes flowchart extraction and system integration
