Many companies are looking at introducing ECM (Enterprise Content Management) or EDMS (Electronic Document Management Systems) to streamline their operations. Many questions arise early on for organizations considering the adoption of ECM/EDMS. What are the hardware requirements? How many FTE’s can be re-deployed, and what training will they require? What about IT support? What type of scanners are necessary, enterprise, departmental or desktop? What about capture software and licenses? Service contracts? Network or bandwidth considerations? Most traditional office equipment vendors sell scanners, and some represent scan capture software products as well. Many scanning service bureau’s also offer scan capture hardware and software products for sale and do so with invaluable experience gained through rigorous trial and error over many years and in almost every situation imaginable. A scanning service bureau can offer additional value by suggesting the most efficient way to set up a scan environment for a client, potentially leveraging legacy systems and databases as well as other complementary technologies. There are many factors that can influence the selection of scan hardware and software. Of particular concern are the need for back file conversion of existing paper records, and the day forward capture strategies for new paper documents entering the system. Any company that has been in business for several years will have significant volumes of paper housed in traditional filing cabinets, archive boxes and in offsite storage. If it is decided that all or most of these records should be housed in the ECM/EDMS, that will have a huge impact on the implementation strategy and costs. For example, if company X determines it has several million pages of paper records to scan, it has some very important decisions to make. If company X chooses to do this work in house, they will need to commit significant financial and human resources to the task. They will need to invest in high speed scanners and capture software/licenses as well as service contracts, hire and train several supervisors and perhaps 8-10 operators, commit many hundreds of square feet of office space and assign valuable IT resources for the life of the back file conversion. Alternatively, company X could retain a service bureau to perform this work on their behalf, which can offer significant advantages over performing the work in house.

1. Hardware and software investments will be considerably reduced as only the day forward (usually a vastly smaller volume) work will be processed by company x.

 

1. Human resources will also be significantly reduced (see item 1).

 

1. Production timelines will be drastically reduced if required as service bureaus can ramp up or down to meet tight deadlines.

 

1. On a direct cost comparison basis, the costs associated to converting the back file using a service bureau are usually dramatically lower than performing the work in house. The disparity in cost is especially large if the back file is the first assignment taken on by a newly created in house scan team!

 

1. The same scan capture software and methodology employed and perfected by the service bureau over millions of cycles can be deployed in house on a smaller scale for day forward capture, saving considerable time, cost and effort.

Enterprise Content Management Seattle

For Enterprise Content Management in Seattle, or if you have any questions on our wide range of digitization services, contact MCS Seattle today!