The term "capture" covers the combined processes of document scanning,
image correction, recognition of text, barcodes, form fields, etc. and finally,
output to an appropriate format for subsequent processing or archive storage.
For 20 years or more, capture has been the entry point for document
store-and-retrieve systems and increasingly for forms processing, workflow and
Business Process Management (BPM). Capture may also be applied to faxes, emails,
electronic documents, images and messages, but we will restrict our attention in
this report to document scanning.
Traditionally, scanning and capture has been considered technically
challenging. Achieving high throughput at minimum cost has required specialized
machinery and skilled staff, hence the prevalence of service bureaus and
outsourcers. There has in the past been some reluctance to invest in capture
technology, particularly where manual keying costs have been reduced by low
offshore labor rates and cheaper communications, enabling a combination of
onshore scanning, with offshore remote keying into corporate legacy systems.
However, more reliable and capable scanners, more automated capture
processes, and in particular, the availability of a multifunction
scanner/printer (MFP) in almost every office, has led over the last five or six
years to a new model of distributed scanning, local to the office staff
processing the documents. In some scan-to-archive applications, particularly in
professional services or healthcare, a scanner-per-desk policy can be viable.
In this report, we look at the issues and potential benefits of these
different approaches, and consider the potential Return on Investment (ROI)
across the more popular application areas. We measure the adoption levels of
different approaches to scanning and capture, as well as the levels of success
in automated indexing and metadata capture.
Key Findings
- Centralized in-house scanning and mailroom scanning
are set for considerable growth, compared to outsourced scanning and capture.
- Distributed scanning on MFPs is set for some growth
compared to desktop scanning.
- Also set for a considerable increase is automated
recognition via OCR, ICR, etc., and automated classification.
- Despite the long term preferred strategies, sales
next year of dedicated scanning hardware is set to drop, with MFPs just
holding their own. Capture software and modules are the only areas of spending
set to rise.
- Knowledge management in the form of improved
searchability of business documents is the highest driver for scanning,
closely followed by compliance and business process improvement.
- 46 percent of users report return on investment
within 12 months, with two-thirds seeing returns within 18 months. These are
consistent across many types of content and processes, with invoices,
contracts and application forms being the most popular.
- Legal admissibility of scanned documents is still
seen as an issue in over a quarter of businesses.
- 30 percent of the sample use outsourced services,
citing “No staff management overhead” as the main benefit, along with
cost-per-scan.
- Integrating the scanned files back into the internal
system is a bigger outsourcing issue than security breaches or lost documents.
Quality of indexing is an issue for 30 percent.
- 48 percent of respondents have a centralized,
in-house scanning service, citing better indexing and closer integration with
the process as the main benefits.
- Meeting demands for fast turnaround is the biggest
issue with central scanning operations, followed by logistics and space
problems.
- 78 percent of those surveyed have some form of
distributed scanning via MFPs, desktop scanners or branch-office scanners.
Ownership of the process by line-of-business owners is given as the main
advantage, as well as improved utilization of MFPs.
- The biggest drawback of distributed scanning is
training staff to index properly and maintain quality of indexing over time.
- While 32 percent of organizations report that the
consumption of paper and/or number of photocopies is still increasing, this is
equally balanced by those who feel it is decreasing.
- 25 percent of scanned documents are photocopied prior
to scanning. Only 31 percent of scanned documents are destroyed after
scanning, with a further 32 percent being archived off-site.
- Only 38 percent of paper-originated records are
scanned and archived electronically.
- 51 percent of scanned documents are 100 percent “born
digital,” i.e., come direct from a printer.
- 37 percent of organizations are scanning over half of
their incoming documents. 12 percent scan more than 80 percent. • As regards
accurate recognition and capture, on average 6.5 percent of scanned documents
are rejected at quality assurance or require intervention.
- Based on the broad definition of distributed scanning to include MFPs,
desk-top scanners, branch office scanning and field scanning, 72 percent of
the survey sample make some use of it, compared to 48 percent who have some
form of centralized scanning operation, and 30 percent who use outsourced
services.
How would you characterize your scanning strategy?
(N-790, ALL > EMPS).
We can see from the figure above that, although there is still some net increase in utilization of multifunctional peripherals, centralized scanning is set for a considerable increase in popularity. Outsourcing is likely to hold its own, with some decrease in offshore scanning. Mailroom scanning of all incoming mail is also a popular strategy.
Doug Miles is head of the AIIM Market Intelligence Division. He has
over 25 years of experience with users and vendors across a broad spectrum of IT
applications. He was an early pioneer of document management systems for
business and engineering applications, and has also worked closely with other
enterprise-level IT systems such as ERP, BI and CRM. He holds an MSc in
communications engineering and is an MIET.