Is your copier/scanner/fax creating more work for you?

Sounds like an odd title coming from someone in the Document Imaging business. But as they say in the oil business, let’s dig a little deeper

Let’s face it, Multi Function Devices (MFD) are here to stay. MFD’s allow you to copy a page, fax a page, and even scan a page so you can retrieve it later from your PC. But a multi function device is no replacement for a document management system that includes scanners and scanning software.

A MFD is really great as a copier and a faxing device. It’s also great when you just want to scan some pages and save them to a disk or make a PDF. But when you see someone standing at a device for an hour or two while scanning, you have to wonder if this is productive document management.

What happens when another person just needs a single copy or wants to send a quick fax? The operator’s productivity is lost and frustrations arise when constant interruptions stop and start a multi function device and the individuals who operate them.

Let’s talk about another issue that frequently arises. As people are scanning paper into the ‘system’ (I use the term loosely here), more times than not, they do not realize that they are not compressing the images. While a document scanning system can scan an 8.5”x11” page in a group 4 TIFF compression at around 30-35k, an uncompressed page can be anywhere from 1-4 MB’s. That’s huge. One customer told us that he had seen some pages as large as 8 MB’s. What will that do to your network traffic, especially if it is a 10 page document?

Another person wanted us to scan about 110,000 pages because he thought it would take too long for them to ‘stand’ there and scan for days. When it was mentioned that it would take 110GB for him to store the images he scanned, but 3-4GB if we did it, he got that puzzled look.

MFD’s certainly have their place. It’s always great to have a quick way to get some pages scanned. At AMC we know that there is more to Document Imaging than just the scanner. Other issues that come up are security and naming conventions. With a Database, you can monitor who has looked at a record and what they did. You can also do look-ups by several different fields, not to mention integrating it with your favorite application. With MFD’s, you are typically limited by the subdirectory. How do you make everyone index the same way? How will you find the file in a subdirectory when the person that named it, is now gone or decided to put the date first in the field instead of name.

Our caution here, in quoting Dr. William Safady, is that technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself!