| Commentary--For many companies today, the focus around
technology is on increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and embracing a
"greener" business model, but does this mean paper documents are
finally heading toward their long-predicted obsolescence? Probably not.
However, creating, sharing, editing, and printing those documents has
proven to be a large drain on productivity, efficiency, and budgets.
Contrary to many projections, paper documents are not going away.
Rather, a new generation of technologies - centering on document
capture and routing - is steadily emerging to enable organizations to
dramatically reduce the use of paper while increasing productivity,
accelerating business processes, improving compliance with regulatory
requirements, and strengthening both disaster recovery and "green"
business initiatives.
The technology
Document capture and routing technology is an
efficient, flexible way to capture, transform, and move paper and
electronic documents among a variety of people, places, and formats. It
starts with the familiar, simple, and ubiquitous networked
multi-function peripheral (MFP) - the new-breed copy machine - and
provides "any-to-many" means of scanning and distributing electronic
versions of paper documents to multiple destinations in multiple
formats.
For example, at the simplest level, a knowledge worker can take
a signed paper contract to the MFP, and scan it into a digital version
of that contract. The document handling application converts that scan
into a Word document or text-searchable PDF file, and e-mails the
resulting file back to the worker's preferred destination (e.g. network
folder, e-mail inbox, fax number).
The power of document capture and routing becomes even more apparent
when a team of people are working on a specific client or project. All
content related to that matter can be captured by the MFP, collected,
and consolidated into a single, central, and secure document management
system that enables distributed teams to share information and
collaborate easily. This eliminates the need to make multiple copies
(with the associated security risks), reduces courier and shipping
costs, cuts the use of printer consumables such as ink or toner, and
increases information accessibility throughout the organization.
Three key elements
For enterprises considering document
capture or scanning, the MFP is the core capture device because these
new breeds of copier-class and printer-class MFPs have the right mix of
feature-rich sophistication, usability, and cost-effectiveness to
support broad deployment.
The MFPs must be connected to a software-based infrastructure on the
network to enable post-capture document processing (e.g. format
conversion and compression) and routing. Ideally, a document routing
solution embodies a three key elements consisting of:
- The MFP Hardware Platform - This includes the device's system-level software and network connection.
- Document Handling Middleware Application - This
software platform centrally controls and manages all of the document
conversion, compression, routing, auditing, and more. This layer acts
as a "many-to-many" hub, supporting n devices and n destinations.
- Destinations - These are the recipients of a document
whether it is a network printer or folder, e-mail, fax, or a more
sophisticated document/content management system.
Regardless of their role or level in the company, every user
should have access to a foundation of basic, consistent features from
the MFP that is managed, supported, available, reliable, and
understandable. For instance, every user should be able to select
simple scan settings, perhaps convert a file format or perform optical
character recognition (OCR), and route the scanned output to their own
e-mail address or to a fax number. Those user instructions - sometimes
called "routing rules" - can be defined, saved, and executed using a
routing sheet (like a fax cover sheet) or directly entered on a display
panel at the MFP.
Optimizing IT
The ability to efficiently and effectively
handle massive volumes of documents across disparate geographies with
distributed groups of virtual users requires a series of considerations
and best practices that each IT department can initiate:
- Manageability - The architecture must support centralized
management while enabling decentralized document capture. From an
administrative perspective, the right solution should take full
advantage of management tools such as Microsoft Windows event logs,
performance monitors, and Windows consoles. This enables an
organization to configure unattended, low-maintenance operations and
receive exception notifications and alerts.
- Reliability -There's no tolerance for application
failure that could leave thousands of employees unable to print, fax,
or scan. There should be built-in failover so if the primary system
fails, a secondary server takes over. A SQL-based message queue working
with a reliable database management system should store the current
state of jobs in SQL tables so if a problem occurs, it can quickly roll
back to the last known state and restart the process.
- Scalability - Component-based architectures enable IT
to simply plug in other nodes to increase throughput and capacity -
without penalty. Virtual machines (VMs) are also increasingly popular
for their ability to bring efficiency, cost-control, and on-demand
scalability.
- Security - From a technical and user perspective, an
audit trail lets the organization track who did what, when, where, and
with what documents. Best practices such as encryption, firewalls, and
other security measures are essential elements of enterprise document
management as well.
- Flexibility - Many organizations have unique IT
environments and applications. The application/platform should be
flexible and customizable to support those environments, now and in the
future.
- Cost-Effectiveness - A less-managed, less-reliable
system is inevitably more expensive. A system that provides a
reasonable ROI is achievable with properly designed and priced document
capture and handling solutions today.
- Control - By requiring authentication at the MFP,
companies can role-restrict access to features and personalize the user
experience. For instance, Joe can use color-copying or color-printing
features and send long-distance faxes but Bob can't. This also permits
chargeback cost-recovery. A company might permit certain users to scan
to their own e-mail address. Others might be allowed to scan into
Microsoft SharePoint or EMC Documentum or scan to multiple
distributions and destinations.
The payoff for business
For enterprises that embrace document capture and routing, the payoffs
are considerable. First and foremost, business processes are faster and
less expensive as worker productivity increases. Documents and the
information they contain are accessible around the office and around
the world. Additionally there's an enhanced ability to comply with
security and privacy frameworks.
Most importantly the enterprise will experience a drastic reduction in
the consumption of paper, toner/ink, and floor space by moving
documents to electronic systems. This cut in costly resources and
wasteful habits are easily adoptable with this technology and the
benefits streamline future initiatives. By embracing green motives,
businesses achieve solid ROI and increased efficiency.
biography
A 20-year veteran of the software and hardware industry, Thaddeus
Bouchard is chief technology officer of Omtool. He brings extensive
systems development and information management expertise along with a
wealth of project-management experience. Bouchard joined Omtool in 1998
as director of product management and rose to vice president of
products in 1999. Previously, Bouchard was founder and CEO of NetValu
Corp., a Web-based provider of technology and services for profiling
the interests of Internet users.
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