Industry Brief · Manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing depends on authoritative information. Smart Stack 3.0 helps manufacturers see, refine, preserve, and activate the engineering and operational data across Microsoft 365 and connected plant systems so people and AI work from the current version.
Executive Summary
What You Gain in the First 90 Days
Designs, specifications, procedures, quality documentation, and supplier records spread across SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and engineering file shares. Smart Stack 3.0 establishes which version is authoritative, protects intellectual property, preserves required records, and prepares approved Trusted Data for Microsoft analytics and AI.
Top
target sector for ransomware, which makes knowing where design and quality records live an availability question
NIST manufacturing cybersecurity
80%
of the estate is unstructured content with no clear owner, version authority, or retention coverage
60%
of that content is redundant, obsolete, or trivial, and IT pays to store, secure, migrate, and index all of it
The Data Estate
Where the Information Actually Lives
Microsoft 365 carries collaboration, communication, and AI across corporate and plant teams. Engineering and operational information also lives in product lifecycle, plant, and legacy environments connected to that estate.
Microsoft 365 Core
SharePoint sites for engineering, quality, plants, and programs
OneDrive accounts holding working drawings, analyses, and reports
Teams and Microsoft 365 Groups created for programs, launches, and incidents
Exchange communications tied to contracts, claims, and investigations
Purview labels, retention policies, and hold signals
Power BI assets, datasets, and lineage
Windows File Shares holding decades of engineering content
Microsoft Fabric, OneLake, Copilot, and supported agent grounding sources
Connected Engineering and Operational Systems
Product lifecycle management and CAD repositories
ERP, MES, and maintenance management systems
Quality management and regulatory submission environments
Supplier portals and contract repositories
Plant and OT documentation stores
Legacy file shares and systems inherited through acquisition
The Cost of Doing Nothing
What Ungoverned Data Costs You
When multiple copies of a specification exist and none is clearly authoritative, cost and risk move from information governance into physical operations.
Engineering intellectual property stored without classification or clear ownership
Duplicate and superseded specifications competing with the current revision
Dormant program sites and stale supplier access left open after launch
Incomplete retention coverage for quality, safety, and contractual records
Slow investigations because authoritative documentation cannot be located
Storage, backup, and migration spend on content with no continuing value
The organization should not pay to store, migrate, secure, discover, index, embed, and process information that has no continuing value.
The Smart Stack 3.0 Response
One Connected Enterprise Platform
Trusted Data Refinery
Trusted Data Refinery analyzes SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and engineering file shares in place. It identifies sensitive specifications and intellectual property, establishes ownership and policy context, isolates duplicate and obsolete versions, and prepares higher-value Trusted Data for engineering and operations.
Trusted Data Archive
Trusted Data Archive preserves quality, safety, contractual, and regulatory records with enforced retention, legal holds, and chain of custody, and reduces dependence on aging archive platforms.
Trusted Data Lens
Shows ownership, permissions, supplier and external sharing, dormancy, and policy coverage across the supported Microsoft estate.
Trusted Data Collections
Organizes program, quality, and maintenance knowledge with source, permissions, classification, policy, and provenance attached.
Data Mirroring and Trusted Data Composer
Prepares approved engineering and operational information for Fabric, OneLake, Power BI, Copilot, and agents.
The Complete Platform
Smart Stack 3.0: One Expanding Enterprise Platform
Smart Stack 3.0 brings executive performance visibility, trusted-data transformation, defensible preservation, controlled information access, and an expanding collection of purpose-built capabilities into one enterprise platform. The result is a connected operating model for improving performance, reducing information risk and cost, and preparing approved organizational data for Microsoft analytics and AI.
Executive Performance Dashboard
The Executive Performance Dashboard gives leadership a unified view of organizational performance, priorities, commitments, risks, and results. It replaces disconnected reporting with a measurable executive operating environment that helps leaders see what is happening, what should be happening, and where intervention is required.
Trusted Data Suite
The Trusted Data Suite transforms uncontrolled enterprise information into governed, higher-value, AI-ready Trusted Data. The Trusted Data Refinery discovers, analyzes, classifies, enriches, and improves rapidly growing unstructured data estates. The Trusted Data Archive securely preserves required information with retention enforcement, legal hold, chain of custody, journaling, defensible discovery, and long-term preservation. The Trusted Data Portal provides controlled access to policy-approved information for authorized people, Microsoft platforms, analytics environments, and AI systems.
Trusted Toolkit
The Trusted Toolkit is an expanding collection of purpose-built technologies for specific data, compliance, AI, and operational challenges. New capabilities increase the value of Smart Stack 3.0 without forcing the organization to procure a separate product, license, or user entitlement every time the platform expands.
$1 Million Annual Unlimited Enterprise License
One predictable annual license provides unlimited authorized organizational use and users across an expanding platform. The organization is not purchasing a static point solution or assembling a collection of separately priced tools. It is establishing an enterprise capability whose value increases as adoption expands, more information is governed, legacy cost is removed, risk is reduced, and new Smart Stack capabilities are introduced.
Unlimited authorized users and organizational use
Predictable enterprise-wide annual cost
Expanding capabilities without separate product-by-product purchasing
Increasing value through adoption, risk reduction, cost avoidance, and continuous innovation
Smart Stack 3.0 helps the organization understand, refine, preserve, and control the information moving through its Microsoft environment. Microsoft provides the enterprise platforms. Zantaz improves the quality, governance, defensibility, and readiness of the data those platforms depend on.
Outcomes
What Your Teams Get
Locate Engineering Intellectual Property
Find designs, formulas, and specifications that sit outside controlled systems.
Establish the Authoritative Version
Identify duplicates and superseded revisions so the current document is the one in use.
Consolidate Acquired Plants and File Shares
Determine what the combined business owns, what must be preserved, and what can be removed.
Preserve Quality and Safety Records
Apply retention and holds where obligations exist and prove chain of custody.
Govern Supplier and Contract Material
Review external access and keep contractual evidence retrievable.
Improve Ransomware Readiness
Identify the information that must be protected first and restored first.
Reduce Legacy File-Share Volume
Remove redundant and obsolete engineering content before migration.
Prepare Trusted Data for Copilot and Field AI
Ground technician and engineering assistants in approved, current procedures.
AI Readiness
Copilot Honors Permissions, Not Accuracy
Microsoft Copilot and agents honor existing permissions. In manufacturing the greater risk is content accuracy. Smart Stack 3.0 establishes whether the specifications and procedures within reach of AI are current and approved.
Remove superseded specifications and procedures from AI grounding sources
Reduce duplicate engineering content before indexing and embedding
Establish ownership and policy context for program and plant material
Create approved Trusted Data Collections for engineering, quality, and maintenance knowledge
Preserve provenance so an answer can be traced to an exact document revision
Prepare governed information for Fabric and OneLake instead of raw file shares
The Readiness Ladder
Six Stages From Visibility to AI
- 1
Visibility
Ownership, permissions, and supplier access across the estate
- 2
Classification and Context
Intellectual property and sensitive specifications identified
- 3
Exposure and ROT Reduction
Duplicate and obsolete revisions removed
- 4
Retention and Preservation
Quality, safety, and contractual records preserved
- 5
Governed Trusted Data
Collections built for engineering and operations
- 6
Microsoft AI Readiness
Approved data prepared for Fabric, OneLake, and Copilot
Timing
Signals That Now Is the Moment
You are expanding Microsoft 365 Copilot or building engineering and field agents
You are moving operational data into Fabric or OneLake
An ERP or PLM transformation is underway
You are consolidating plants, file shares, or acquired systems
A quality or safety investigation exposed documentation gaps
Ransomware readiness requires knowing which information matters most
You need to reduce volume before paying to migrate, secure, archive, or process it with AI
Three Questions for Your Leadership Team
- 1
Do we know which information across Microsoft 365, engineering file shares, archives, and connected plant systems is authoritative, sensitive, obsolete, or subject to policy?
- 2
Can we connect what Microsoft reports about permissions, labels, retention, and legal holds to the engineering and quality record we must govern and preserve?
- 3
Are we preparing approved data for Fabric, OneLake, Copilot, and agents, or allowing AI to answer from superseded specifications?
Close
Understand, Reduce, Preserve, Prepare
Smart Stack 3.0 helps your organization understand what it has, reduce what it no longer needs, preserve what it must protect, and prepare approved Trusted Data for Microsoft analytics and AI.
Sources
- Cybersecurity for Manufacturers · NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership · 2026
- Securing Manufacturing Industrial Control Systems · NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence · 2026
- Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot · Microsoft Learn · 2026