6. Our engineers use many different file formats, and those are different from the ones some of our vendors use

Best course or action is to set up what we call a “Data Logistics Help Desk”.  This allows engineers and other personnel to request the acquisition of documents from customers, covert them to the appropriate format for your software, and ensure the secure transmission to other parties outside of the organization.  If you cannot afford to set up your own help desk, we contract this service to a number of manufacturers.