24 January 2006

As our dependency on paper-based information increases, the concept of the paperless office of the early 1990s is perhaps destined to remain as a pipe dream. But companies can now cut down on their paper intensive workflows by harnessing technologies such as document capture, Michelle Dhillon reports.

Document capturing can very much be viewed as a technology whose time has come again. As Paul Turner, solution architect at HP, says: "There is a renaissance going on, there are more people wanting to take advantage of this technology. But there are no new innovations, it's just getting cheaper and easier for people to afford. Its an evolution, not a revolution."

Initially introduced in the early 1990s in the form of scanning and digitalisation, it was far too expensive and complex for many organisations to invest in and seemed destined to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Only companies dealing with credit card or insurance claim processing could justify investing in it because of their complex paper processes.

However, the advent of multifunction products (MFPs) and digital copiers has altered the printing technology landscape entirely. Instead of focusing on document capturing and investing in expensive front-end solutions, introducing cost effective ways to distribute material from the back-end has become a realistic alternative.

The increased speeds of PC-based scanners mean that companies can quickly digitise their entire document inventories. Most importantly, document capture and processing abilities such as intelligent document recognition (IDR) are now built into most MFPs, which makes it more affordable for companies to take a distributed approach to document capture.

Ken Salmon, European market understanding and channel communication manager at Xerox Europe, says: "Xerox started to merge copying and printing towards the end of the 1990s, which was when the multi-function product started to hit the marketplace.

"This accelerated the document management bandwagon because people started to realise that the printer was an off-ramp from the information super highway and the scanning capabilities provided you with the on-ramp. We started to think about how you could move from hard copy to a digital copy. That is the essence of document management."

But the issue of compliance can probably be viewed as the single most important contributing factor for the need to invest in document capture technology. Paul Turner adds: "One of the reasons why more people are wanting to take advantage of this technology is down to compliance.

"They need to know information and can't stand behind excuses like simply not having documents anymore. They need to have the information available to any authorised person within their organisation. This is why document management has been taken advantage of within the records management area, especially with regard to legal documents."

The UK has seen the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2005, which is part of a wider European Union directive and, when combined with the rigours of the US Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) 2002, means that being able to manage records efficiently is more vital than ever before.

SOX requires all publicly held companies to manage and maintain corporate records and the government can hold managers legally responsible for failing to comply. Because the effects of the act are far reaching, many non-US companies listed on US Exchanges are also affected by the legislation.

In effect, thorough and consistent control of documents is critical to bring companies into line with legal regulations. In order to counter these issues, global companies like Xerox are offering the latest range of MSPs with document capturing facilities in order to streamline paper workflow processes in a cost-effective and efficient way.

Xerox's most recent offering to the market is the FreeFlow SMARTsend software solution, a document capture and routing product. This works with new and legacy Xerox advanced MFPs to allow hardcopy documents to be scanned in black-and-white or colour, which can then be converted into a variety of formats including PDF, JPEG and TIFF.

Using optical character recognition technology, the software can also convert documents to editable files such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint or searchable PDF. This allows the user to integrate hardcopy and electronic data to create new documents that can be manipulated, saved and shared. SMARTsend also enables the user to customise fields that will accompany the documents, allowing the information to be easily categorised, searched and retrieved.

Alan Clark, European product manager for multifunction devices at Xerox Europe, says: "Whenever you want to set up a workflow before SMARTsend you had to call the IT department to set up a workflow document.

"There was always a time delay between when the user wanted the workflow started to when it was actually implemented by the IT department. Now SMARTsend gives the end user the ability to create their own workflows which is really important from an IT perspective because it gives them less administrative work to do, but it also makes it more timely for the end user who wants to start using that workflow immediately."

The effects of document capturing technology are not to be underestimated. HP shared details of how they worked with the National Gallery in London to stop thousands of customers being faced with disappointment when visiting the gift shop. Due to only 5 per cent of its entire collection being lithographically reproduced, the National Gallery Company were only able to offer posters for 60 of their most popular paintings at one time.

By working with HP to scan and digitise the entire collection, they were able to develop and install Print On Demand kiosks. Now customers can browse through the collection and print any of the 2,500 paintings from the collection in a choice of A2, A3 and A4 sizes in a matter of minutes. The Gallery expects to increase the commercial return on its technological investment by increasing the availability and variety of reproduced images for sale. And the digital archive allows them to cut costs by eliminating the need for stock and warehousing costs.

Paul Turner says: "Being able to just scan documents into a machine can offer an extra revenue stream for a business. We worked with the National Gallery in London to carefully scan the art works. Now they have their entire catalogue available to everybody without needing to hold physical copies in the shop. They no longer have to print 5,000 copies of one picture; they can just do it on demand when the customer wants it. Combined with Hewlett Packard 5500ps DesignJet printers that give you good print quality output, the results are exactly the same as if they have been printed professionally."

HP's main universal business solution to deal with document management issues is the .NET Electronic Document and Records Management (EDRM) solution. This can address universal business issues such as information overload, duplication, inconsistency and ineffective sharing. Crucially though, it can also help to ensure that regulatory compliance can be achieved in a cost-effective way.

Paul Turner likens its operational simplicity to driving a car: "Most people don't want to know how the engine runs, they just want to get in, turn the key and drive off. The .NET EDRM solution enables customers to do their normal jobs, store their documents without having to worry about what happens in the engine department."

Another huge organisation that has benefited from streamlining their paper-based workflows is the Parlamento de Galicia. The governing body of the Galicia region is based in Northern Spain and serves an estimated three million citizens. The parliament relied on a frustrating combination of manual paper-based processed to store and find information. Their system was so antiquated that in many cases, retrieving information was a case of simply asking another member of staff where something might be filed.

Jorge Remuin Surez, head of IT at the Galician Parliament, says: "People had become used to the situation, but with an election every four years, this reliance on particular individuals for data retrieval was far from ideal."

They chose SourceCode Technology Holdings' K2.Net solution to integrate seamlessly with their Microsoft servers, provide a standardised system, and be fault-tolerant. Built on the .NET Framework, K2.Net helps organisations design, execute, manage, and control enterprise-level, human-to-human, and human-to-system workflow solutions.

Its implementation resulted in a whopping 60 per cent increase in efficiency that has significantly improved the parliament's internal and external processes. Remuin Surez adds: "Parlamento De Galicia is confident that the technologies we have put in place will continue to deliver benefits to both civil servants and our citizens for a long time to come."

So what does the future hold for document management, a technological innovation that after a decade is finally enjoying its time in the limelight? Ken Salmon and Alan Clark gave us an insight into the latest technologies that are being developed at Xerox's European research centre (XRCE) in Grenoble. One of the exciting new developments underway is CopyFinder, which provides a seamless interface between hard copy and digital technology.

In effect, it helps users find and retrieve a digital version of a paper document or the original version of an electronic one by searching DocuShare and Google. DocuShare is Xerox's Web-based document management application that gives organisations a secure environment for capturing, managing and sharing information. Product descriptions, forms, project plans and financial reports are all examples of documents that may become obsolete or needed in different variants or languages, and for which the ability to immediately retrieve an updated copy by using an existing one as a token is of great value to help users gain time and efficiency. CopyFinder will gradually be introduced in future MFPs.

Ken Salmon says: "There's a high percentage likelihood that you will be able to find your document using this technology. Then you can have an electronic copy for you to do what you like with." Xerox has also developed Mobile Document Imaging, an intriguing product that can turn camera phones into portable scanners. The imaging software allows you to quickly transmit the content of document 'pictures' using a camera phone.

After capturing the image you apply the software that sufficiently 'cleans it up' to ensure that the text is legible. It then compresses the image so that it can be sent immediately via fax, bluetooth or MMS. What was originally a fuzzy, warped 250kb jpeg file becomes as small as 15kb.

Alan Clark says: "People need information on the run and more intelligence and portable documents for mobile workers is where you will see a lot of development over the next few years." What was once pushed to the sidelines as a costly technological advancement is now accessible to companies of all sizes. Document management is an innovation whose time certainly has come again, but now its here to stay.

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