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Use what you Have Well - Is your Copier working for You?

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Walk through any office building, and I guarantee you you’ll see at least one photocopier – I think they hand them out as part of the standard “office welcome basket”, along with cubicle walls, staplers and Dilbert cartoons.  It’s probably been there so long (occasional upgrade aside) that it’s viewed as part of the furniture.

But really, how many people know what their photocopier is truly capable of?  Sure, you can print to it, and it makes copies (hence the name), but how many truly use its scan functions for all they’re worth?  In my experience, very few companies use their office copier to its full potential. 

It really breaks my heart sometimes to walk into a building, see a brand new (or even an older) copier or multifunction device right next to a file cabinet full of documents to bursting.  And many, many companies are guilty of this.  With a little research into document capture and workflow automation, many companies could save valuable time, money and real estate.

In the Document Management and Capture field, much like any other, many companies’ worst enemy is the status quo.  Those people that say “This is the way things have always been done – this is the way they always will be done”, in my opinion, have their heads in the sand.  If a company does not innovate, does not develop effective edge technologies and cost saving measures, they will be swiftly outbid and overtaken by those that do.

Here’s a list of phrases you may hear when discussing new and innovative Document Management solutions – or indeed any new innovation and idea.  I recently came across an article by Kamal Hassan on business-strategy-innovation.com entitled “20 Phrases that Kill Ideas and Innovation” – here they are for your convenience:

1. It’s against company policy
2. It’s not practical
3. It’s not necessary
4. We don’t have the resources
5. It will cost too much
6. We’ve never done it that way
7. Our customers (or vendors) won’t like it
8. It needs more study
9. It’s not part of your job
10. Let’s make a survey first
11. Let’s sit on it for a while
12. That’s not our problem
13. The boss won’t go for it
14. The old timers won’t use it
15. It’s too hard to administer
16. Why hasn’t someone else suggested it before?
17. Let’s form a committee
18. We should wait until the economy improves
19. Who else has tried it?
20. Is it best practice?

You may have heard some, if not all of these before.  When hit with one of these innovation killers – get to the bottom of it!  Quite often people are simply afraid of change and don’t have the knowledge or information to back up their claim.  And quite often, the innovation and change that they’re scared of can be the thing that saves their company thousands! In the case of Document Management, imagine having a simple network storage device take the place of that bulky file cabinet – that not only stores your documents but routes them to where they need to be instantaneously – doesn’t that sound better than hunting through cabinets for that elusive document?

Comments

Copier scanning.....

Submitted by David Houlston, ECMp July 27, 2011 - 5:45 PM

There are 2 very compelling arguments to consider when using a copier for scanning - especially when it is related to Document Management (and I mean Document Management as in managed, maintained systems not file systems).
1. There is no image QC. Copiers are not designed to view pages/documents or provide a way to insert/rescan pages. The user will have no way of knowing if a page misfeeds or is double fed. Unless the user stands and watches every page (yeah right!) go through the device, there is no quality check. What happens in 10 months when pages 8 and 12 of the Journal Voucher document are not available and somebody has "lost" the original?
2. Volume. Having the summer temp stand at the copier and scan 26 filing cabinets is all well and good but who else can use the copier while he/she is beating it to the ground?

Imaging devices are designed to scan and scan only. There is a very important and frank conversation to be had about the above 2 points before setting course on a scanning expedition. What you don't want to do is begin this scanning project, have bad capture and retrieval experiences and have the 'nay' sayers say "I told you change was bad!"

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