How To Choose The Right Document Scanner

Flatbed? Sheetfed? PPM? IPM? ADF? VRS? PDF?

Getting lost in a sea of choices and acronyms? Today we look to help clear some of the confusion and mystery out of purchasing a document scanner for your organization.

When looking into a document scanner(s) for your organization, it's important to realize the difference between an "off the shelf" scanner from and office superstore and a true business use scanner. Quite often we see clients struggling with superstore style scanners, a backlog is piling up and the quality isn't what they had hoped for. There are few reasons for this:

1. Consumer level scanners are in fact that, consumer level products. They are not designed to withstand the volumes of your typical office. These consumer products typically have a very low daily duty cycle when compared to more robust business level scanners and therefore require more maintenance and earlier replacement. Both of which plagues you with downtime and inefficiencies.
2. Scanning speeds differ drastically between consumer and business level scanners. A typical consumer level scanner can capture documents at a rate of 4 pages per minute, whereas most entry level business scanners will capture 20 pages per minute.
3. Rescans are a lot higher on consumer scanners has they typically do not have automatic image enhancement functionality such as cropping, deskewing, auto contrast and brightness. More rescans of course result in lost time and productivity.

I don't want to dwell too much on the difference between consumer and business level scanners; typically organization's know the differences either through education or through previous bad experiences. What I do want to cover though is how to select the RIGHT business scanner for YOUR SPECIFIC NEEDS. There are a few key points to consider when evaluating documents scanners and subsequently the vendor you purchase from.

1. Base your requirements on peak levels, not averages. If your application has peaks and valleys, for instance enrolment forms coming in bulk at the beginning of a month and only trickling in for the rest of the month, you should calculate your scanning needs based on those peak times, otherwise you will fall behind when high volumes come in for scanning.
2. If scanning plays business critical role in your organization you may want to consider redundancy. Having a back up scanner and/or scan operator can give your organization the depth it needs to handle increased workloads, or downtime on the primary scanner.
3. Look for a scanner with built-in image enhancement features such as; automatic border removal, deskewing, image clean-up, hole punch removal, etc. These features will help eliminate rescans, lower your file sizes and improve productivity. A good option for this is the Fujitsu fi-Series scanners with Virtual ReScan (VRS) software or hardware acceleration.
4. Double sided documents? If you work with a lot of double sided documents be sure to invest in a duplex scanner. Duplex scanners save you a significant amount of time as they capture both sides of the document in a single pass, negating the need to re-feed double sided pages.
5. Don't trust the rated speeds. Scanners speeds are typically rated one of two ways Images Per Minute (IPM) or Pages Per Minute (PPM). IPM refers to duplex scanners and measures the amount of images (front and back of a page) that can be captured in a minute. PPM refers to how many single sheets can be fed through the document scanner in a typical minute. It's important to identify if the manufacturer is measuring in IPM or PPM so you can be sure you're making a fair comparison.
6. Colour, greyscale and black & white. Make sure your scanner can handle colour documents if that's what your application calls for. Also you want to be sure to find a scanner that doesn't slow down too much in colour mode and ruin your productivity.
7. Scanning resolution depends on the documents you're capturing and what the end result is going to be. If you're looking to do photographic reproductions then a higher resolution scanners (1200 dots per inch or higher) might be right for you. However, assuming you are capture typical office documents, we recommend scanning resolutions of 300DPI for black & white and 200DPI for colour. At the end of the day these settings will give you the best compromise between file size and image quality.
8. THE MAGIC FORMULA. You shouldn't expect to get the full rated speed from a scanner during an eight hour shift. Many factors such as operator fatigue, breaks, load and unload the scanner, image enhancement features, etc. all slow down production times. One handy way to determine true production speed is by following this simply formula.
   
   75% of the rated speed of the scanner x 50mins per hour x 7 hours a day = Expected production levels.
   
   For example a scanner rated at 40ppm would work out like so
   40 x 0.75 x 50 x 7 = 10,500 pages per day
   
   
9. Evaluate the maintenance. Buying a scanner online may seem like the least expensive option in the short term, but you should consider where the service is going to come from, what the response times are, any additional costs and most importantly does the warranty transcend borders? Once scanning because an integral business service in your organization can you really afford 2 weeks downtime while you ship the scanner away for depot service? Or worse yet realize that scanner you purchased from a US vendor doesn't have warranty coverage in Canada.
10. When in doubt ask an expert, find a local authorized imaging reseller for a major manufacturer such as Fujitsu or Canon and get their assistance in selecting the proper scanner. Most imaging partners have extensive experience in configuring scanning operations and can offer valuable insight.

For more information about scanning technologies and business process optimization solutions, visit our website at www.mesltd.ca

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It's Not All Fun In The Sun

This week our executive team will be making the trip down to beautiful Scottsdale AZ, but it won't all be fun in the sun. As part of our constant effort to stay on top of industry treads, improve productivity and bring revolutionary new solutions to our clients our team his heading south to attend the AIIM Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum (long name, but great event) and the IIMDA bi-annual executive meeting.

A little bit about AIIM and the Executive Forum:

For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. AIIM was founded in 1943 as the National Microfilm Association and later became the Association for Information and Image Management. AIIM is also known as the enterprise content management (ECM) association.

Today, AIIM is international in scope, independent, and implementation-focused. As the industry's intermediary, AIIM represents the entire industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel.

AIIM's Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum provides owners and senior managers in document imaging/ conversion/ preservation services with highly educational and vendor-neutral instruction. As an ideal peer-to-peer networking event, the Forum fosters mindshare to compare past experiences and ideas for future business development.

A little bit about IIMDA:

Founded in 1984, IIMDA is a group of over 25 member-companies throughout the United States and Canada. IIMDA is the oldest and largest dealer group dedicated to document management and its surrounding scanning, micrographic and data management technologies. The independent nature of IIMDA members allows them to determine the best solutions for each client’s needs, regardless of the source of the solution. Locally owned and operated, IIMDA dealers bring an unbiased assessment of technology and services to their clients.

The IIMDA bi-annual executive meetings are designed to bring the group together as a collective and discuss current business trends, assess future needs of our clients and discuss what's working and what's not.

Feel free to contact us with any document management questions that you may have or to let us know how we may be of assistance. We look forward to hearing from you. Contact Us Today

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The Girl Guides of Canada Ontario Council Goes Digital with MES Hybrid Document Systems

“The excellent support with this project has only served to assure us that we were correct in staying with a good company.”

The Girl Guides began in 1908 when Boy Scout founder Lord Baden-Powell, asked his Sister, Agnes, to create a similar program just for girls. By 1910, the movement had reached Canada, and by 1912, there were units in every province and many of Canada’s most forward-thinking women had gathered together to create the Canadian Girl Guides Association.

The archives of the Ontario Council holds textual records, publications, magazines, photographs, scrapbooks, uniforms, insignia and other artifacts pertaining to the history of Guiding in Canada. Unfortunately, a great deal of this information was becoming dated and the paperwork was hard to retrieve and easily became damaged. MES Hybrid Document Systems were already microfilming a number of documents for the Girl Guides but it was decided that the documents should be returned to them in an electronic format. This allowed the organization to perform simple searches and retrieve the information quickly and efficiently.

Head of the Girl Guides Ontario Council Archives, Joan Beckley, welcomed the idea of installing FileDirector document management software into the Girl Guides archives office. MES takes bankers boxes, filled with important and historical documents, from the Guides, scans them and archive writes them onto microfilm for long term archival retention. They also upload the images straight into their FileDirector system allowing Joan and her colleagues to search and find historic documents with only a few keystrokes.

FileDirector’s flexible, easy-to-use interface has greatly benefitted the Girl Guides of Canada, given them more space in their offices and has made the information available Province-wide.

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Your Corporate Security, Who's Job Is It?

One of the key elements of an effective ECM system is strict security controls. When faced with a document discovery order during litigation, or with a government-imposed audit, an organization must be able to prove that key records have not been tampered with or deleted.

The ECM application should control which users can create, read, revise, and delete specific classes of documents. It should track revisions, prevent conflicting simultaneous edits, and disallow direct access to document stores that bypass business logic and workflow. It should produce audit logs that track both user and machine activity.

While IT may be instrumental in implementing these controls, the policies themselves must be set at the executive level—through close cooperation between Human Resources and Legal—to meet regulatory compliance and litigation requirements.

The principle of least privilege—giving users only the access necessary to accomplish their primary job function and no more—is often contrary to the full trust model to which organizations become accustomed. It may also be contrary to the way IT is used to working, having free reign over systems for administrative convenience. This is particularly true when the ECM application was developed by in-house IT staff or is perceived as being an IT system, rather than a business system.

In this regard, drawing upon the services of an external ECM consultancy will provide two immediate benefits. First, they'll provide objective advice on writing and implementing security policies, and on educating employees on the benefits of these policies. Second, they'll deliver an application designed from the start with strong security in mind.

Select an ECM consultancy that provides clear security guidance along with an application with strong security and audit controls built-in.

"The preservation of electronic evidence is NOT part of the IT person's day job and, without a combination of detailed instructions, legal overview, supervision and research, problems arise down the road." — Martin Felsky Ph.D., J.D., E- Discovery in Canada

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E-Discovery; The Latest ECM Driver

Without a doubt, one of the major factors driving ECM implementations is the rising tide of legislation and litigation. In the United States, there has been as much as a 50 percent increase in the filings of class action lawsuits in the past year, half of them related to the financial crisis. (San Francisco Business Times, December 2008) Most of these will rely heavily on electronic discovery, a trend mirrored in the Canadian landscape. "It would appear almost inevitable that we will see parallel decisions in Canada to the precedent-setting electronic document litigation matters in the United States." (The Lawyers Weekly, February 2007) During these actions, courts may order the discovery of any and all documents, including those on paper, in e-mail, instant messages, and audio logs.

When a discovery order is issued, it may be necessary to freeze data stores, preventing the accidental or deliberate deletion of documents. Failure to comply with these directives can result in significant fines, negative rulings, exclusion of evidence, default judgments, and worse. As noted by IT World Canada, "The price of failing to comply is significantly higher than what it could cost to install the appropriate tool. Credibility can be destroyed and penalties imposed that can bankrupt a small business." (IT World Canada, May 2008).

Read more about the ECM solutions offered by MES Hybrid Document Systems and find out how you can minimize your risk when faced with E-Discovery. Find Out More

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My Microfilm Collection Is Covered In Red Spots... Now What?

We've seen more and more of this pop over the past few years. Clients approach us asking about blemishes ("measles" or "red spots") showing up on their older microfilms. Sure, a spot here or there is understandably acceptable to live with, but it's getting worse. More and more spots keep appearing and worst of all it's beginning to result information loss of critical historical records. What is it? And more importantly, how do we correct it?

Chances are your microfilm or microfiche collect is developing a case of Redox.

So what is Redox?

Silver microfilm has been used for decades as an archival media of choice among records managers and archivists, both in the private and public sector. The silver microfilm film offers long term, technology independent, archiving of business critical documents. However, even though this residual silver base of the microfilm has been “fixed” during the processing phase it is still susceptible to degradation through oxidation and exposure to various atmospheric gases. In essence, undoing the long term archiving you had planned for.

Some processed silver gelatine microfilms in storage for two to twenty years can develop small coloured spots or blemishes, called Redox. The fogged leader at the outside of the roll is most frequently affected by the blemishes, which are generally red or yellow in color and are smaller in size than the image characters (for example, a typewritten letter reduced 20X) on the microfilm. Other common areas for Redox to start are fingerprints and areas where adhesive tape is in contact with the film. The blemishes result in the permanent obliteration of the affected images. Once the deterioration of the microfilm occurs, it cannot be reversed. Luckily though, it can be halted.

An example of Redox

So what are the solutions? Well the first option is brown toning.

By converting the volatile metallic silver into a stable silver sulphide the deterioration of the film can be halted. This is called polysulphide, or brown toning. This ensures your films will last the true 500 year life expectancy.

Proper brown toning requires a special processor setup and careful replenishment of a volatile brown toner mixture to assure accurate conversion.

For those who have film collections damaged by Redox, brown toning can halt the spread of Redox, however, the portions of the image that have been lost cannot be restored. The brown toning service can be done on newly processed film or old film collections.

While brown toning will prevent any further oxidation from forming on the microfilms, it still leaves you with a media that can be cumbersome to retrieve from and does not offer the collaboration and instant access to information we have become accustomed to. This leads us to the second option, back-file conversion of your microfilm or microfiche collection.

The technology exists today to convert, on mass, your microfilm collect into useful and easy to access digital images. Enabling you work more efficiently and cost effectively with the information you need.

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In-House ECM Development: More Trouble Than It's Worth

Enterprise Content Management has become a critical strategic business process, due in part to increasingly stringent legislation and aggressive litigation.

Canadian corporations must observe the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) which governs how personal information is collected, stored, shared, and used. While this is onerous enough, a Canadian company with US relations may also have to comply with America's Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and, depending on its industry, the US Patriot Act or Securities and Exchange Commission directives.

Further, American-style litigation, including the use of electronic document discovery, is growing increasingly common in Canada, such that a legal policy group, Sedona Canada, was formed to draft a set of national policies governing e-discovery legal issues. The Lawyers Weekly, a newspaper for the Canadian legal profession, observes, "You can’t put your head in the sand. It’s just not going away. You are going to have to be dealing, in every piece of litigation, with electronic records." (The Lawyers Weekly, November 2007)

To meet this challenge, some organizations take a do-it-yourself approach, letting their in-house IT department build an ECM system from scratch or using ostensibly cheap tools. Inevitably, this only complicates matters and leads to greater expense with an inordinate amount of time spent on research and development, testing and debugging, and on-going support. When ECM is viewed as a technology system and managed as an IT project rather than as a management-led information governance initiative, the resulting implementation may lack the necessary security features and functionality to ensure regulatory compliance and discovery protection.

This white paper will demonstrate why the preferred alternative is to seek the assistance of an experienced ECM consultancy. Such a resource will provide a thorough understanding of the factors affecting your industry in general and your organization in particular, saving you valuable time on research and development.

By deploying a pre-packaged application customized to your specific environment, an ECM consultancy will cut short the cycle of testing and debugging that typically plagues in-house projects. The result will be an ECM system that will meet your organization's governance and compliance obligations faster and at a lower cost than is possible with in-house developed applications.

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The Inaugural Post

MES Hybrid Document Systems has been in the business of Document Management since 1971. We aim to provide solutions which assist in achieving higher levels of productivity, profitability, efficiency and environmental sustainability for our clients. Innovative and modern digital technologies are used alongside tried and trusted,analogue solutions to offer our customers secure and reliable information management solutions and can help them work towards a paperless office.

Our vision is Peace of Mind for our clients. Not Pieces of Paper.

We've developed the blog as an informational portal. A source of industry developments, information collaboration and an outline of best practices. We hope you find the content rich and reward and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us at www.mesltd.ca

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