Configurable Document Automation Platform for Export Compliance

A configurable AI-powered platform that automates export certificate generation across 34 countries, ensuring compliance with dynamic customs regulations.

Configurable Document Automation Platform for Export Compliance

About the client

Industrial equipment exporter shipping to 30+ countries. Each outbound load must travel with destination-specific conformity, safety, and customs certificates — documents compiled from structured ERP data (invoices, packing lists) and unstructured inputs, such as scanned test reports and inspection records.

About the Product

and Introduction:

It began with a single request: to create the correct certificates for each consignment and to do so more efficiently. But there was a deeper friction behind it: export data zigzagged through spreadsheets, email chains, and tribal knowledge. Every misstep delayed customs clearance, and every patch-up increased the risk.

Devox Software responded with a configurable document automation platform designed for both speed and control. A FastAPI-based orchestrator combines scanned input, OCR, field-level confidence scoring, validation rules, and dynamic template rendering — all in a cloud-native, observable architecture.

Business users control requirements via JSON profiles that are versioned with Git. Whether it’s a new target, a changed regulation, or a new certificate format, the system adapts in minutes, not days. What used to crawl through the inbox now flows through a regulated, explainable pipeline that delivers export-ready packages in less than seven minutes, with built-in proof of testing.

Project Team

Composition:

  • Solution Architect (intelligent automation & export compliance)
  • 2 Full-Stack Engineers (React, FastAPI/Python)
  • QA Automation Engineer
  • DevOps Engineer (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, monitoring)
  • Business Analyst (export logistics & regulatory compliance)
  • Project Manager

Challenges:

  • Fragmented data inputs. Each shipment relied on three separate sources — PDF invoices, PDF packing lists, and XLSX/XML transport tables — whose inconsistent layouts and labels slowed every hand-off.
  • Manual data extraction. Operators keyed up to 120 critical fields per load (sender data, SKUs, seal numbers) from raw documents, pushing accuracy below 88 % and spawning rework across finance and logistics.
  • Country-specific variability. Thirty-four destinations required more than 85 certificate variants; every regulatory tweak necessitated code edits and full retests, thereby throttling the release cadence.
  • No structured validation flow. With no pre-flight checks, malformed files and mismatched units surfaced only during certificate generation — or worse, at customs — when fixes were most costly.
  • Rigid scaling model. Adding a new country meant cloning rules deep inside the stack, as no dynamic configuration layer existed to absorb changes without downtime.
  • No feedback on OCR confidence. Early parsing returned values without certainty scores, leaving teams unsure which numbers to trust or verify.
  • Broken traceability. Generated certificates lacked a link to the source documents or rule sets, thereby undermining audits and complicating dispute resolution.

Tech

Stack:

  • Frontend: React 18, Vite, i18next (multi-language), React Router, Material UI
  • Backend: FastAPI (Python 3.11), Pydantic v2, Celery task queue
  • AI & OCR: Google Gemini Pro for NER/classification, pytesseract for OCR, spaCy, pandas, openpyxl.
  • Document Generation: docxtpl (DOCX), openpyxl + xlsxwriter (XLSX), pdfkit (PDF/A consolidation).
  • Configuration Management: Git-versioned JSON templates per country, hot-reload via S3 event triggers.
  • Database: PostgreSQL 14 on AWS RDS with partitioning for per-country datasets
  • Storage: AWS S3 (versioned, server-side encryption) with pluggable adapters for Azure Blob / GCS.
  • DevOps & Deployment: Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions CI/CD, AWS ECS Fargate (prod).
  • Authentication & Security: JWT (Auth0), AWS KMS–managed secrets, IAM fine-grained roles.
  • Monitoring & Logging: AWS CloudWatch, Grafana Cloud dashboards, Loki centralized logs.

Solution:

Devox Software embedded an Intelligent Automation layer inside the client’s CS IT-Enterprise stack, converting fragmented inputs into a governed, template-driven certificate factory.

  • Unified ingest pipeline. A single upload action accepts three artifacts per shipment — PDF invoices, PDF packing lists, and XLSX/XML transport tables. FastAPI services stream files to an OCR + parser pool; image blocks feed a fine-tuned Tesseract engine, while tabular data flows through pandas / openpyxl extractors.
  • Country-driven configuration engine. Every destination (34 today) is represented by a Git-versioned JSON profile that lists mandatory fields, validation masks, and output layouts. Adding a new market means committing a profile — no code edits, no downtime.
  • AI-assisted field validation. The pipeline assigns a confidence score to each extracted value. Scores below the acceptance threshold surface instantly in the web console, directing users to the exact field for correction.
  • Certificate rendering workflow. Validated data triggers a chain of templating workers that assemble DOCX and XLSX artefacts: conformity certificates, safety declarations, transit sheets, and multi-page annexes. All layouts align with the latest local regulations.
  • Operator-first web console. A React interface lets authorised staff drag-and-drop files, edit dynamic fields, review flagged values, and download the final certificate pack — all without leaving the browser.
  • Cloud-native execution. Docker-packaged services run on AWS ECS Fargate behind an API gateway. PostgreSQL stores structured data, while S3 retains originals, renders, and audit traces. CI/CD pushes versioned containers, while CloudWatch and Grafana guard performance and uptime.

Results:

BUSINESS OUTCOMES

  • AI-governed by design. The platform aligns with EU AI Act guidelines for customs-focused automation, offering explainable extraction, human-in-the-loop reviews, and traceable shipment evidence.
  • ~80% reduction in manual work. Key entries decreased from ~110 to ~24 FTE equivalent, thanks to AI-assisted extraction and one-click certificate generation.
  • < 7‑minute certificate turnaround. The average cycle time dropped from 26 hours to ~1 hour and 45 minutes, making same-day customs filing feasible across all 34 lanes.
  • ~99 % field-level accuracy. Confidence-driven OCR and pre-flight validation reduced human error by ~90%, with no customs rejections reported in production.
  • Downtime-free market rollout. Four new country profiles were deployed in Q1 using JSON configurations.
  • Audit-ready traceability. Each certificate includes links to its input files, applied logic, and configuration version, simplifying compliance reviews.

TECHNICAL OUTCOMES

  • Fully decoupled micro-architecture. React UI, FastAPI services, OCR workers, and template renderers deploy independently, allowing for parallel feature work and hot fixes.
  • Config-driven agility. Country templates, field rules, and language packs live in Git-versioned JSON; a regulatory change now ships to prod in < 1 hour instead of 5 days.
  • End-to-end observability. CloudWatch metrics and Grafana dashboards track ingest latency, OCR confidence, and template health; SLO breaches trigger Slack alerts.
  • Elastic performance at peak. Fargate cluster auto-scales to 12,000 docs/hour while keeping CPU below 60 %; PostgreSQL partitions and S3 object versioning maintain throughput.
  • Mature CI/CD pipeline. Automated tests (92 % coverage), blue-green deploys, and secure pipelines ensure reliable rollouts across all stages.

Sum Up:

Intelligent automation now drives every certificate that leaves the dock — AI parses PDFs and tables, validation rules shield against compliance drift, and a microservice pipeline assembles country-ready packs in minutes. Operators handle only flagged cases; the system scales as needed, and every certificate field traces back to its source for audit support.

Ready to turn document chaos into a governed, self-learning flow? Let’s map your requirements and build the successive automation win together.

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