A Template-Based Approach for Industrial Title Block Compliance Check

Title block compliance checking requires interpreting irregular tabular layouts and reporting structural inconsistencies, not only extracting metadata. This paper introduces a user-in-the-loop, template-based method that leverages a graphical annotation workflow to encode title block structure as a hierarchical annotation graph combining detected primitives (cells/text) with user-defined semantic entities (key–value pairs, tables, headers). The resulting template is matched onto target title blocks using relative positional constraints and category-specific rules that distinguish acceptable variability from non-compliance (e.g., variable-size tables versus missing fields). The system outputs extracted key–value information and localized warning logs for end-user correction. On a real industrial example from the nuclear domain, the approach achieves 98–99% compliant annotation matching and 84% accuracy in flagging structural/content deviations, while remaining tolerant to moderate layout changes. Limitations and extensions are discussed, including support for additional fields, improved key similarity metrics, operational deployment with integrated feedback and broader benchmarking.