Automating Technical Service Bulletin Management at Triangle Package Machinery

Streamlining the Technical Service Bulletin Process for Triangle Package Machinery Co.

Founded in 1923, Triangle Package Machinery Co. is a Chicago-based family-owned and operated company. With a reputation spanning nearly a century, Triangle® serves the world's leading food manufacturers and distributors, offering innovative sanitary food packaging equipment. Their products range from Vertical Form Fill Seal (VFSS) bag machines to multiheaded weighers and cartoners. Serving diverse markets like seafood, cereal, poultry, meats, and more, Triangle's commitment to excellence is seen in their ability to service machines from the 1950s and their global network of distributors.

Triangle Package Machinery brand logo
Triangle Package Machinery production facility image

How IDT and OnBase® by Hyland® Transformed a Manual Engineering Approval Process into a Trackable, Automated Workflow

Founded in 1923, Triangle Package Machinery Co. is a fourth-generation, family-owned manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. For more than a century, Triangle has designed and built sanitary food packaging equipment for leading manufacturers and distributors, including vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) baggers, multihead weighers, cartoners, and other specialized packaging systems.


Its equipment serves a wide range of food markets, including cereal, seafood, poultry, meats, produce, cheese, frozen foods, snacks, candy, and liquids. Triangle’s commitment to long-term customer support is especially notable: the company continues to service machinery that has remained in operation for decades, including equipment dating back to the 1950s.

Triangle Package Machinery logo
Triangle Package Machinery production facility

The Challenge

Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) Process


Triangle’s Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) process was largely manual and dependent on email, Microsoft® Word templates, and SharePoint® for document storage and distribution.


When an engineering change, obsolete part, updated service method, or other field-related issue required formal documentation, the process could involve multiple engineers, department managers, technical writers, and service personnel. Drafts were exchanged by email, reviewed, revised, and circulated repeatedly until all required approvals were completed.


This created several operational challenges:

  • Limited visibility into TSB status, making it difficult to know where a bulletin was in the creation, review, approval, or distribution process.
  • Heavy reliance on email, increasing the risk of delays, missed messages, and repeated manual follow-up.
  • Manual tracking of assignments and approvals, placing a significant administrative burden on Triangle’s Technical Writer.
  • Difficulty coordinating collaboration, particularly when multiple engineers needed to contribute to a single TSB.
  • Lack of automated reminders and accountability, requiring the Technical Writer to repeatedly follow up with participants to keep the process moving.
  • No real-time metrics or dashboards, limiting management’s ability to monitor outstanding tasks, processing times, exceptions, and overall TSB activity.


Because TSBs provide critical instructions and guidance for equipment already operating in the field, delays or gaps in the process could affect engineering responsiveness, service efficiency, and customer support.

The Solution

The Solution: Automating the TSB Process with OnBase® by Hyland®

IDT collaborated with Triangle to create a customized solution leveraging OnBase by Hyland software. This system automated, streamlined, and provided a rules-based workflow for the TSB process. Key features included:

IDT worked closely with Triangle’s Technical Writer and engineering team to design a cloud-based enterprise content management and workflow solution tailored to the company’s Technical Service Bulletin process.


Using OnBase® by Hyland®, IDT replaced the largely manual, email-driven process with a structured, rules-based workflow that provides visibility, accountability, and control from TSB initiation through review, approval, and final distribution.



The solution leveraged several OnBase capabilities, including:

  • Document Management

    OnBase by Hyland provides document imaging and document management to centrally manage TSB documentation and any supporting records.  Additional capabilities include revision control and document tracking.

  • Workflow Lifecycles

    OnBase Workflow to route TSBs through the appropriate engineering, management, and approval steps.

  • Automated Notifications and Reminders

    Automated reminders, or “nag emails,” kept the process on track using workflow triggers and timers.  These features help keep assignments and deadlines on track without requiring constant manual follow-up.

  • Microsoft Office Integration

     Allows Triangle to continue using its existing Microsoft Word-based TSB templates including embedded images and technical illustrations.

  • Hyland Dashboards

    OnBase Dashboards provide near real-time visibility into TSB status, outstanding tasks, processing times, exceptions, and overall workflow activity.

  • Role-Based Access and Secure Distribution

    Ensures completed TSBs are made available to the appropriate internal personnel and, when required, Triangle customers.


By preserving the familiar tools Triangle’s engineering staff already used while adding structured workflow, automation, and reporting, IDT was able to modernize the TSB process without forcing users into an entirely new way of working.

business impact and Outcomes

Automating Triangle’s Technical Service Bulletin process with OnBase® by Hyland® delivered meaningful improvements in visibility, accountability, and process efficiency across the engineering organization.  Key outcomes include:


  • Improved Process Efficiency — Automated routing, notifications, and approvals reduced the manual effort required to move TSBs through the review and approval process.
  • Real-Time Visibility and Accountability — OnBase® Dashboards provide insight into TSB status, outstanding assignments, processing times, exceptions, and individual responsibilities.
  • Reduced Administrative Burden — Automated reminders and workflow rules significantly reduced the need for Triangle’s Technical Writer to manually track progress and repeatedly follow up with participants.
  • Enhanced Search and Retrieval — TSBs can be quickly located using relevant information such as machine type, assembly type, and other indexed criteria, helping Triangle identify applicable bulletins and affected equipment or customers.
  • Greater Process Consistency — Structured workflows help ensure required review, approval, and follow-up activities are completed before a TSB is finalized and distributed.
  • Foundation for Broader Automation — The success of the TSB initiative demonstrated how OnBase® could be applied to other business processes across Triangle, including Engineering and Sales Change Orders, Human Resources, Finance, and additional document-intensive workflows.

building on the success

The success of Triangle’s Technical Service Bulletin automation initiative has created opportunities to apply similar content management and workflow automation capabilities across other areas of the organization.


Triangle and IDT have identified additional opportunities to extend OnBase® by Hyland® and related IDT technologies into processes such as:


  • Engineering and Sales Change Order Automation — using workflow, dashboards, electronic forms, revision control, and document management to improve visibility and accountability throughout change processes.
  • Human Resources Automation — supporting employee onboarding, employee file management, training documentation, and other HR-related workflows.
  • Financial Document Management — digitizing and managing accounts payable, accounts receivable, statements, sales orders, and other financial records.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration — linking transaction-related documents in OnBase® to the corresponding records in Triangle’s ERP environment.
  • Factory Floor Document Capture — deploying IoT Smart Connected Scanning powered by CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ to capture shipping, receiving, packing slips, bills of lading, inventory documents, and other operational records.



Together, these initiatives demonstrate how Triangle is building on the success of its TSB automation project to expand digital document management, workflow automation, and information visibility across the enterprise.

Conclusion

For Triangle Package Machinery, Technical Service Bulletins play an essential role in maintaining equipment performance, communicating engineering changes, and supporting machinery that can remain in service for decades.


By replacing a largely manual, email-driven process with a structured OnBase® by Hyland® workflow, IDT helped Triangle improve visibility, accountability, collaboration, and process control throughout the TSB lifecycle. Automated routing, notifications, dashboards, and centralized document management give engineering and management teams greater insight into each bulletin from initiation through approval and distribution.


The success of the TSB automation initiative demonstrates how targeted workflow automation can simplify complex engineering processes while preserving the flexibility employees need to do their jobs effectively. It also provides Triangle with a scalable foundation for expanding digital process automation into other areas of the organization.


As Triangle continues to invest in manufacturing innovation and prepare for its next century, IDT remains a trusted technology partner supporting the modernization of the information and business processes behind its operations.


Learn how IDT helped Triangle Package Machinery preserve decades of engineering knowledge by digitizing more than 70,000 legacy aperture cards and making historical engineering drawings securely accessible through CAPSYS CAPTURE ONLINE™ and OnBase® by Hyland®.



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 details about Triangle Package Machinery Co.® and their offerings, visit https://www.trianglepackage.com.


For more details about IDT and our full range of Enterprise Content Management products and service offerings, please visit our Solutions and Services pages.