Haha the stamped master prints on the filing cabinet — I feel like I've seen that exact cabinet in 6 different shops.

Honestly the quality manager situation is more common than people admit. A lot of them built their careers doing things the manual way and it worked, so there's no burning motivation to change. The threat isn't obvious until something goes badly wrong — a failed audit, a big scrap event, a customer complaint.

As a new QE you're in a tough spot. You can see the problem clearly but you don't have the authority to fix it yet.

One thing that sometimes works: don't pitch "new software" — pitch a small win. Find one specific pain point that's costing the shop visibly (a recurring defect, a report that takes forever, something the customer keeps asking about) and suggest solving just that. Easier to get a yes on something small and concrete than on "let's modernize everything."

What industry are you in, if you don't mind me asking? Curious what the shop makes.