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Why
should I convert my files to digital images?
| Retrieval | Permanence | Speed | Cost
Savings | Space
Savings |
| Services Offered |
Retrieval
| Top
 The best answer to this
question is "so that you and as many people who need to get at the
information in your files can have access to them". Converting paper
files to digital files offers users the opportunity to customize their
filing system. If you have only a few boxes or a cabinet of paper files,
you may want to stay with a simple file folder paradigm. However, if many
people need access to the files and they are all searching for different
information, then you should probably consider an "imaging
system".
Imaging systems can
be integrated into your email or into your current information system, or
they can remain as "stand-alone" systems. Whichever direction you
take, you will find several software alternatives that can support
departmental systems 40-60 staff and enterprise systems that support
thousands of users simultaneously.
Before talking with
imaging software vendors or systems integrators get your users and
management team together and decide how you would like to retrieve
information "in a perfect world". Ask each level of the
organization that uses the information you are considering for an imaging
system to dream their wildest dream and to describe how they would like to
get the information in question. It is from this framework that you should
develop your Statement of Work for your document imaging system.
A frequent mistake
made by companies just moving into document imaging that is the replication
of their current filing system in a digital environment. Although easiest
to implement, this is both shortsighted and will cost more to operate and
maintain in the long run. A productive imaging solution enables you to do
many tasks that you simply can not do with a paper-based system. It should
not enable you to make the same mistakes or errors that your current paper
based system encourage.
Permanence | Top
 Many types of records are
legal documents that can not be modified. These records can be stored on
CD-ROM or Write Once, Read Many Times (WORM) Optical Disk with assurance
that the documents on that media will last between 50-100 years. This is
sufficient for most applications. Optical Disk and CD-ROM are the preferred
storage media for Government applications where the legal "paper
trail" is important. Birth, death, voting, and marriage records are
examples of State and Local Government applications that need permanent,
unalterable storage. Medical records, accounts payable/receivable files,
and personnel or pension files are examples of commercial applications that
demand this type of storage.
Speed
| Top
A properly configured
imaging system can provide access to any record or file to hundreds of
staff within seconds. A paper filing system provides access of a file to
only one person at a time and takes minutes and sometimes days to obtain.
Because of the difficulty in obtaining paper files, some companies limit
the number of files that any individual or department can sign out. This
limitation impedes productivity of the entire organization.
Cost Savings | Top
The old cliché,
"Time is money", applies to record systems as well. But there are
other savings that can occur with imaging. For example, it takes much less
space to store a corresponding volume of records with an imaging system
often 95 percent less. Most departmental and enterprise imaging systems
require few staff to support and maintain than paper filing systems.
Finally, there is the cost of the lost document or file. It is much easier
to misfile or permanently lose a paper file than a digital image. Imaging
Systems offer many ways of indexing documents. When documents are miscoded
or improperly indexed one way, they can be found using another index
parameter. Time, space, and cost prohibit this sort of duplication in a paper
environment.
Space Savings | Top
 One of the major reasons that
many organizations decide to convert their files to digital images is that
they have run out of office space and have no more room for their files.
Converting to digital imaging can eliminate 98% or more of the space
required for the storage of paper based files. Companies don't want to
throw out the files because of tax liabilities or because of they want to
maintain a historical perspective of their clients. Saving space is often
the major reason that clients give for moving to digital imaging.
Services Offered | Top
Imaging services is
much like the proverbial concept of beauty. That is, like beauty, it
depends on how you define digital imaging. Our focus is upon document
management and training. Therefore when we speak of digital imaging we are
talking about some type of conversion of office or engineering documents
into some digital, indexed and useable customer format. This includes:
- Conversion of paper
documents to raster images (TIFF)
- Manually or automatically
correcting the skew and image quality of the digital document.
- Conversion of electronic
documents and images from word processing or design formats into PDF
or IPDF format
- Conversion of raster
images into Vector (CAD) formats
- High quality color
printing of office or engineering documents
- Development and
production of training programs on CD-ROM. (This can be linked to your
WEB site or customer specified WEB sites)
- Data validation and
correction
- CD-ROM duplication
Contract
Vehicles
GSA Schedule
FEDSIM
Conversion Schedule
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