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THE
TRUTH ABOUT IMAGING
Digital Imaging
- IMT Magazine (Issue 1 - 06)
By: Kurt W. Stevenson (Executive Director -
IMT Media Group)
Benefits Of Digital Imaging - ROI
Most organizations
focus their digital imaging purchases on the reduction of paper, but this is
by no means the most important reason for converting paper to digital. In
my opinion, there are many other reasons for converting. Some of the most
prominent other reasons would be:
IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO
DOCUMENTS
Digital imaging
combined with Electronic Records Management Systems (EERMS) allows users
immediate access to critical documents without the need for a hard copy
file. With digital documents a user can search, retrieve and execute a
document in seconds. This can be done in a fraction of the time it takes to
request and retrieve a hard copy file. Of course, saving time equates to
saving money in many organizations. Therefore immediate access to documents
is a critical reason for conversion to a digital environment.
MULTIPLE USER ACCESS
TO DOCUMENTS
In many instances,
employees have the need to view and execute documents simultaneously. In a
hard copy world this is a significant obstacle unless the employees are in
the same place at the same time. The best way two or more employees can view
and execute a document simultaneously is to have the document in a digital
format. Digital documents which reside in EERMS or Electronic Document
Management Systems (EEDMS) can be viewed, edited and executed by multiple
employees no matter the employee’s location or time zone.
REMOTE ACCESS TO
DOCUMENTS
Having your documents
converted to a digital environment can allow immediate and multiple user
access to documents via the web from remote locations. If your files only
reside in paper format productivity may be negatively impacted because
multiple employees must be at the remote location at the same time in order
to view the file content.
GLOBAL SHARING OF
DOCUMENTS
Having electronic or
digital versions of records will also enable document sharing via the web in
a global environment. Most EERMS and EEDMS set-ups will allow publishing
the digital documents to an E-Portal via encrypted secure user access. This
permits users located anywhere in the world to access the published
documents. This is also a huge ROI because now organizations may execute
multi-billion dollar deals via the web across country boundaries and time
zones.
DISASTER RECOVERY
How do you recover
paper documents or files after a disaster occurs? In the past, everyone
always said, “This will never happen.” In today’s environment, disaster
recovery plans should be in place at nearly every organization or firm in
the country. The answer to recovering paper documents in most cases is –
YOU DON’T! Having your records converted to a digital environment allows
you replicate to remote locations in real time. In laymen’s terms, it
allows you to copy the entire file or record as it is added to the system.
Having a quality replication of your digital document repository to an
offsite location is crucial when you are thinking of converting to digital
and prepares your organization for the time that “will never happen”.
REDUCTION OF PAPER
ONSITE
Of course everyone
would love to reduce the amount of paper onsite. Remember this important
fact: the quality of your images is the main determinant of the amount of
paper you can destroy. In a digital imaging environment, quality control
checking every document scanned is a must. If you destroy the paper right
after scan and you have not performed appropriate quality control checks;
the imaged document may be useless. Although most capture technologies in
operation today have built-in processes for QC none of them can offer 100%
QC checks. At my facility each and every page of every document scanned is
QC checked and then stamped 100% QC. We not only check that each page is
scanned, but we also check for resolution, de-skewing, and de-speckling and
over-all image quality. The reason for this is that all of our images must
be print quality! This in turn will allow our attorneys to re-print an
imaged document that looks like it was just typed via word processing
software! If these processes take place you can destroy the hard copy
document knowing you have a 100% quality, replicated electronic version of
the original.
REDUCTION OF PAPER
OFFSITE
If you take the
necessary measures to ensure that your images are excellent quality and a
100% accurate replication of the original it is easy to reduce the amount
paper offsite. At our site, we simply look for the stamp of approval on the
document. When we send the records to storage we go through a purging
process which allows us to destroy all the documents with the stamp of
approval. We never destroy ORIGINAL EXECUTED DOCUMENTS. Although courts in
the US accept an electronic version of the signed document we feel it is
necessary to retain original documents for there full retention period.
Even retaining these documents can reduce your offsite storage by up to
70%. This converts into real dollar savings when you are storing 50,000+
boxes of useless paper!
Setting Up Your Digital Imaging Network – Hardware – MFP’s
In beginning the
process of setting-up a global network for digital imaging, the purchase of
hardware is crucial. Purchasing the right Multi-Function Printers (MFP) can
make or break your environment. One good practice is to ask each vendor to
provide you with a specifications sheet on their latest and most productive
MFP. Take these documents and build comparison spreadsheet (in MS
Excel). Through this process, comparison of all the machines may be made in
a more efficient way. Don’t take what’s on paper as reality! Most MFP’s
perform at around 75-80% of what the specs say. You must consider the image
resolution and any other processes involved in the scanning process. With
this said, on the copy and print side most MFP’s perform at around 90% spec
ratio. Remember that the size of the file and the file format that you are
printing will directly affect the PPM rate of most MFP’s. Following are
some important factors to consider when purchasing Multi-function printer
devices.
WHAT IS THE FEEDER CAPACITY?
Most of the feeder tray
capacities on all common MFP units range between 139-150 pages maximum. Some
have the option to accelerate this capacity a bit, but it’s not going to
reach 500 pages.
CAN YOU BATCH SCAN?
With the feeder
capacity being limited to around 150 pages the ability to batch scan is
crucial. This means that you can take a 1000 page document and continually
feed the document 150 pages at a time until you are finished. When all 1000
pages are complete you can then simply push a button and commit the entire
document for processing.
Without this option,
you are restricted to scanning only small capacity documents. Some vendors
provide third party proprietary software platforms which will allow batch
scanning with a cover sheet of sorts, but now you are adding another step to
an already NEW practice for most users. Adding this step may build another
potential problem into the process.
WHAT IS THE PPM ON
PRINT SCAN AND COPY?
This is a crucial
factor in purchasing MFP devices. Most MFP's start at around 35ppm with
200dpi and level 4 compression. These machines are will usually meet the
minimum requirements of your organization, but are usually limited by
functionality and mass usage. I would suggest you purchase a machine with a
minimum of 50ppm. Remember once again that your ppm will be directly
affected by the size and format of the document you are trying to
print. Scanning speed will be affected by the level of compression and
resolution you are scanning at.
ARE PROGRAMMABLE
INTERFACES POSSIBLE?
Although this may not
be an immediate need you should always purchase for the future. Having the
ability to program the user interface on the machine to meet your
organization’s needs will definitely become a crucial factor in the future.
SCAN TO EMAIL – SCAN
TO NETWORK DRIVES
Two features which the
MFP must have is the ability to scan to email and scan to network drives.
This will allow users to convert paper documents quickly throughout your
organization. Scanning to network drives will allow you to program
interactive buttons on the panel that allow direct scan to Records
Management, Document Management, and Accounting Software Systems.
IS COST RECOVERY
CONTROLLED ON THE PANEL?
Most organizations
control cost recovery for print and copy by using a third party piece of
hardware attached to the machine. Each of these machines has a cost of
around $2500 -$3000. Most organizations are unaware of the option to
control cost recovery available on many MFP’s through Nqueue. Third party
companies charge up to .12 per image. With a backend cost recovery system
you can control what is called “Digital Media Conversion”. So a bill-back
will not say copy or print cost. It will say Digital Media Conversion,
which will include print, scan, copy, phone (If your system is on VOIP), and
fax. There is a huge ROI involved in cost recovery on the panel. Don’t
forget to ask about this option form your MFP provider.
IS BARCODE/COVER
SHEET RECOGNITION INCLUDED?
This option is crucial
when scanning directly to your EERMS system. Cover sheets contain meta data
which is transferred to a data file along with the document. The scanner
must read and recognize this data for the digital document to properly index
into your backend systems. If your new MFP’s don’t include this out of the
box don’t buy it!
DEFINE YOUR
INTERFACES BETWEEN EERMS, EEDMS and BACKEND SYSTEMS
Defining how your MFP
devices will interact with your backend systems is also a crucial point.
Make sure you know what file formats your EERMS, EEDMS and Accounting
systems will accept. Contact your EERMS, EEDMS and other backend systems
providers for this information before you purchase your MFP devices. With
the ability to program the user interface on the machine, you add simple one
button solutions to move your images into backend systems.
Setting Up Your Digital Imaging Network – High Capacity Scanners
MFP devices are only a
portion of your imaging network. If you are going to perform FULL SERVICE
imaging onsite you will need to purchase High Capacity Scanners. These
scanners normally have feeder capacities of 1000 pages or more. These
scanners normally need stand alone PC’s with massive amounts of RAM to
operate correctly. Some valuable features to look for are below.
WHAT IS THE FEEDER
CAPACITY AND MAX PPM?
Most high capacity
scanners will allow at least 1000 pages at a time in the feeder. Do not
consider high capacity scanners which don’t provide at least 500 page feeder
trays!
WHAT ARE THE PC
SPECS?
As I stated earlier,
most high capacity scanners require a stand alone PC for processing. Make
sure you know what hardware is needed for maximum results in processing.
Make sure you account for the cost of these PC’s when you are choosing high
capacity scanners.
IS IT UPGRADEABLE?
In most cases the need
to scan 250 pages per minute duplex (both sides of a document) is not
necessary at the outset. Make sure you can purchase at least 80 PPM duplex
capacity, and then upgrade the same scanner to 150 PPM duplex when the need
arises.
CAN YOU SCAN AT MAX
PPM DUPLEX IN ONE PASS?
Most MFP devices don’t
have dual cameras. This means that to scan duplex the feeder must pull the
document through the scanner twice. High capacity scanners should have two
cameras and the ability to scan a two sided document at max PPM in one
pass. This will save countless man hours when processing large volumes of
paper documents.
Optical Character
Recognition (OCR)
Ok, what does that
mean? OCR, in laymen’s terms means that a backend system will read the
context of the image and place a text file behind the picture. This will in
turn make any imaged document text searchable. This functionality allows
users to not only search for the document description, but they can also
search across the body of the document for keywords. A few features
necessary for OCR systems are below.
WILL IT RUN AS AN NT
SERVICE?
This means if any
server in the farm fails will it reboot and continue processing where it
left off, or do you have to manually restart all of the services to begin
processing. Make sure this feature exists. You do not want to have to
monitor your backend OCR system every minute of everyday. Having the
ability to restart itself provides a “hands-off” structure of an OCR
system. The system should know that it failed, at what point during
conversion it failed, and restart at that point at server reboot. Make
sure it will auto capture the latest footprint of processing progress at
server failure
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