Preserving a Century of Engineering Knowledge: Triangle Package Machinery Digitizes 70,000+ Legacy Drawings with IDT

Transforming 70,000+ Legacy Aperture Card Drawings into Accessible Digital Engineering Records

For more than a century, Triangle Package Machinery has designed and manufactured packaging equipment used by many of the world’s leading food manufacturers. With machinery still operating in customer facilities after 50 years or more, Triangle relies on decades of historical engineering documentation to support equipment maintenance, replacement parts, and ongoing technical service.


Much of that critical engineering knowledge was preserved on more than 70,000 aperture cards containing legacy parts drawings and equipment designs dating back to the 1950s.


To modernize access to these valuable records, Triangle partnered with Integrated Document Technologies (IDT), a digital transformation and enterprise content management specialist with more than three decades of experience.


IDT converted Triangle’s legacy aperture card collection into digital engineering records and implemented a secure, cloud-based content management solution leveraging CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ and Hyland, giving authorized personnel faster access to the historical drawings needed to support Triangle’s equipment throughout its lifecycle.

The Challenge

Triangle’s reliance on more than 70,000 legacy aperture cards created several operational and information-access challenges:


  • Slow retrieval of engineering drawings, which could delay engineering research, parts identification, and customer service response times.
  • Limited access to historical technical information, requiring personnel to manually locate and review physical aperture cards.
  • Risk of deterioration, damage, or loss of irreplaceable engineering records dating back several decades.
  • Dependence on legacy media and manual retrieval processes, increasing the time and effort required to support older equipment still operating in the field.
  • Difficulty preserving institutional engineering knowledge and making historical designs readily accessible to current and future generations of Triangle employees.

The Solution

 IDT developed a comprehensive conversion and content management strategy to transform Triangle’s legacy aperture card collection into accessible digital engineering records.  The project combined specialized aperture card scanning, careful document preparation, quality assurance, CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™, and Hyland®.

1.

High-Speed Kodak Alaris Document Scanners™ with Perfect Page® and embedded Flat Bed Technology:

  • Perfect Page Technology®: Enhanced the quality of scanned images.
  • Flatbed Scanning: Ensured scanning of very fragile papers such as onion skin, mylar, manila, carbon-paper, or larger bulky documents.
  • High Speed Scanning: For traditional and well preserved documents.

Phase 1:

Assessment and Planning

IDT began by assessing Triangle’s collection of more than 70,000 aperture cards and developing a structured conversion plan designed to preserve image quality, maintain document integrity, and organize the resulting digital engineering records for efficient retrieval.


The solution combined IDT’s document conversion expertise with CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ and Triangle’s cloud-hosted Hyland environment.

2.

Specialized X-Ray and Book Scanning Equipment:

  • Ledger Size Book Scanning: Without unbinding the pages from the book spines.
  • Allowed for the digital conversion of Coroner’s X-Ray images consisting of skulls, torsos, limbs, dental records, etc.

Phase 2:

Aperture Card Conversion and Digital Migration

Secure Transport, Inventory, and Preparation

Triangle’s aperture cards were carefully packaged and transported to IDT’s document conversion facility in Itasca, Illinois. Upon arrival, the collection was inventoried and prepared for processing.


Because many of the cards had remained in storage for decades, preparation required significant hands-on attention. Some cards had adhered to one another over time and needed to be carefully separated before scanning to prevent feeding problems and protect the original records.


High-Resolution Aperture Card Digitization

Using specialized aperture card scanning technology, IDT converted the historical engineering drawings into high-resolution digital images. CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ supported the capture and processing workflow, while IDT applied quality-control procedures to verify image clarity, completeness, and usability.


Integration with Hyland

The digitized engineering drawings were imported into Triangle’s cloud-hosted Hyland's enterprise content management environment, creating a centralized digital repository for historical technical information.


Authorized Triangle personnel can now securely access engineering drawings through a web browser without locating and handling physical aperture cards. The digital drawings can also be retrieved for use within Triangle’s engineering and CAD processes when historical designs need to be reviewed, referenced, or modified.


Secure Return of Original Aperture Cards

Following successful conversion and quality verification, the original aperture cards were securely returned to Triangle Package Machinery, preserving the physical records while eliminating the need to rely on them for routine engineering research and retrieval.

3.

CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ Cloud IDP Solution:

  • Integrated with both Kodak Alaris scanners and specialized X-
  • Ray equipment creating an all-around efficient and versatile capture platform.
  • Integrated with OnBase® by Hyland ECM Solution: Ensured that the newly digitized files were compatible and seamlessly merged with the existing on-premises ECM system.
  • Various Multi-Media devices to in-take analog recordings in multiple aging formats (Beta, VHS, SVHS, Audio files, Floppy Disks, Cassette Tapes) and as technology evolved more modern formats such as CDs, DVD’s, etc.)

Phase 3:

User Adoption and Ongoing Support

IDT provided training to help Triangle personnel effectively access and manage the newly digitized engineering records within Hyland. Ongoing support helps ensure the solution continues to meet Triangle’s evolving engineering and information-management requirements.

The result

By digitizing more than 70,000 legacy aperture cards and making the resulting engineering drawings securely accessible through CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ and Hyland, Triangle transformed a decades-old records archive into a practical digital engineering resource.  Key benefits include:


  • Faster access to historical engineering drawings, reducing the time required to locate legacy parts, assemblies, and equipment designs.
  • Improved responsiveness to engineering and customer service requests, particularly when supporting machinery that has been operating in the field for decades.
  • Secure, browser-based access to critical technical records, eliminating routine dependence on physical aperture cards.
  • Greater engineering efficiency and collaboration, allowing authorized personnel to quickly retrieve and reference historical documentation.
  • Improved preservation of valuable engineering knowledge, protecting decades of technical information from the risks associated with aging physical media.
  • Better support for long-term equipment lifecycle management, helping Triangle continue servicing and maintaining machinery manufactured many years ago.

Expanding the Digital Transformation Partnership

The successful digitization of Triangle’s historical engineering drawings established a foundation for a broader digital transformation partnership between Triangle Package Machinery and IDT.


Building on that success, Triangle subsequently engaged IDT to automate its mission-critical Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) process using Hyland. The solution replaced a largely manual, email-driven process with structured workflow, automated notifications, centralized document management, real-time dashboards, and greater visibility and accountability throughout the engineering review and approval process.


Triangle and IDT have also identified additional opportunities to extend document management, capture, and workflow automation across the organization, including:


  • Engineering and Sales Change Order Automation — leveraging Hyland Workflow, Dashboards, Unity Forms, electronic signatures, revision control, and document capture to streamline engineering and pre-sales change processes.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration — connecting transaction-related documents stored in OnBase® with the corresponding records in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
  • Human Resources Automation — applying Hyland document management and workflow to employee onboarding, employee file management, training documentation, and other HR processes.
  • Historical and Current Employee File Digitization — converting personnel records into securely managed electronic employee files.
  • IoT Smart Connected Scanning — deploying CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™-powered scanning technology on the factory floor to capture shipping, receiving, packing slips, bills of lading, inventory records, and other operational documents.
  • Financial Document Management — expanding digital document management to accounts payable, accounts receivable, statements, sales orders, and other financial and historical business records.

Conclusion

For Triangle Package Machinery, preserving more than a century of engineering knowledge is essential to supporting equipment that can remain in operation for decades. By digitizing more than 70,000 aperture cards and making those historical engineering drawings securely accessible through CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ and OnBase® by Hyland®, IDT helped Triangle transform a legacy archive into a practical digital resource for engineering, service, and long-term equipment support.


The project combined specialized document conversion expertise, careful handling of aging records, rigorous quality control, and modern enterprise content management technology. The result is faster access to critical engineering information, improved preservation of historical records, and a stronger foundation for continued digital transformation across the organization.


As Triangle prepares for its next century of manufacturing innovation, its partnership with IDT demonstrates how legacy engineering information can be preserved, modernized, and made more useful for the people who rely on it every day.


For additional perspective on Triangle Package Machinery’s 103-year manufacturing legacy, continued investment in operational efficiency, and focus on preserving institutional knowledge, read the recent Packaging OEM feature, “Making Every Square Foot Count: Triangle Package Machinery Builds for Its Next Century."


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For more information about Triangle Package Machinery Co. and its packaging equipment solutions, visit trianglepackage.com.


To learn more about IDT’s engineering document conversion, enterprise content management, workflow automation, and digital transformation services, explore our Solutions by Technology, Solutions by Department, Solutions by Industry and Services pages..