Contract reviews are critical procedures in manufacturing, which ensure a comprehensive assessment of staff, legal approvals, and equipment capabilities before the production process. In essence, these contract reviews are a moment of truth for all parties involved and often offer clarity on the terms and conditions of the manufacturing process.
However, a simple mistake in manufacturing contracts can make a manufacturer liable and hurt relationships with vendors. That’s why it’s essential to have a thorough review process in place to find and fix any errors before the deal is signed. Contract review in manufacturing has become digitized today, and more companies are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make the process more efficient.
3 Common Concerns Related to Manufacturing Contracts
Industry players in the manufacturing sector often face common problems when dealing with contract reviews. These issues include:
Administrative Functions
The concept of lean manufacturing is a commonly used way to cut costs, but it often leads to employees being overworked and departments failing to work seamlessly as they should. At times, bottlenecks in the contract department can even stop deals from closing and operations from going on.
Issues with Manual Contract Review
Emails and other paper paperwork are unsuitable replacements for a sound contract management system. Since humans are prone to err, manual configurations are based on people’s opinions and often lead to mistakes. Often, without such kind of background information to help understand other people’s perspectives, we waste a lot of time trying to figure out proposed changes to contracts.
Manual review work is also time-consuming and needs to be done carefully, with many sets of eyes for revisions and edits. To make contracts more consistent and effective, there needs to be a set of standard procedures and ways to reduce problems caused by human error.
Disruptions in the Supply Chain
The objective of contracts is to offer parties legal remedies when they emerge. However, they have no control over problems in the supply chain, like shipping containers that get stuck, a lack of dock workers, rising fuel prices, and changes in the legal landscape of shifts in the economy.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in The Prevention Of Production Bottlenecks
With manufacturing contracts, the review phase is just as critical as having a well-drafted initial contract.
In the past, entry-level attorneys would spend a lot of time and effort checking drafts against standards, rules, and guidelines that had already been set. Then the reviews would be sent to a senior member of the legal team for approval. The process experienced the effects of bureaucracy given the unintended back and forth.
On the other hand, a platform that uses AI technology can automatically compare a new draft to different existing drafts through playback. The approach allows you to find differences, mistakes, and omissions easily.
Instead of taking months to review, a full redlining of an agreement can be done in less than five minutes. Notes about the situation can be added to help make decisions. Changes can be made with the click of a button, and attorneys can add adjustments that make future reviews even faster.
With this option, an attorney can still do the final check to ensure the marked-up draft is good, but the number of escalated issues and hours spent are much lower.
BlackBoiler Helps You During Every Step of Contract Review in Manufacturing
BlackBoiler prides itself on being a market leader as a platform that uses AI and automation to solve the problems of modern manufacturing contract review. The platform offers the following benefits:
Easy Set Up
BlackBoiler can make an AI Smart Playbook from just a few agreement samples, making it easy to set up and standardize. When a new draft is uploaded to the framework, the AI compares it to the AI Digital Playbook and redlines it based on a company’s best practices for contracting and negotiating.
Automated Redlining
BlackBoiler’s AI can insert playbook-guided changes based on the needs of each draft. This results in automated redlining, which is as good as an attorney would do. Changes from the norm can be found and judged for their risk. Like an actual attorney, the system’s suggestions change and get better over time.
Combining AI and Automation
With so many lawsuits and new technologies emerging, manufacturers need some leverage to stay ahead of the competition. Combining AI and automation is the only way to speed up the review of manufacturing contracts.
Manufacturers rarely have the time to send back and forth emails or spend weeks on tasks that can be done in five minutes. If you are dealing with such a concern, you can trust BlackBoiler with your future contract reviews and cut costs and time used to review your contracts.
Get in touch with us today for high quality contract reviews.
