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Randy and Bob has selected a few of their favorite models for 2011, which are discussed in their lectures and presentations. Fujitsu products continue to rate very highly and high marks are received in seminars from attendees who use these products. We will up this site for new models as they are released mid-year, but we want to give an early heads up to the S1100 personal scanner that was showcased at CES and Macworld 2011. This scanner has a very small footprint, even smaller than the popular S1300 and competes with the likes of the Neat Receipt Scanner. Under $200 this will be a delight for mobile professionals. Scanner Models
The Following Will Help You Select the Right Scanner For You Selecting the Right Scanner for Your Needs While 90% of all documents we work with are already electronic, according to at least one PricewaterhouseCoopers study, we still need to scan a lot of paper documents it seems. With the move to Enterprise Content Management, ECM, www.totallypaperless.com, having the right scanner is as important to a small business today as a fax machine was only a few years ago. There is also a lot of good related content to scanning and document management at www.aiim.org. Now there are a number of excellent scanner manufacturers, however, as with other components we tend to be a bit prejudice as to which vendors we prefer. For us Fujitsu is a hands down winner, but we are keeping our eyes on HP as they have committed significant dollars to research and development to catch up. Again, we have nothing against other manufactures so if you have great recommendations let us know the vendor, product and why you like it and we will take a look when time permits. We really do like sharing the experiences of other users. Accountants put a lot of value on our peers findings. When discussing scanner technology in our seminars we are asked what type of scanner to buy and what to look for, our standard reply is to look for a scanner that includes the following:
The Scan Process There are basically three scanner options:
The “Scan Area” where the stand-alone workstation and dedicated scanner are stationed should be an area with ample space to support the process. A table at least eight to ten feet long provides a good work area. Avoid U-shaped or L-shaped work areas that require excessive movement and twisting as this may lead to injuries on the job. From the left, the operator will disassemble the documents to be scanned, remove clips and staples, organize non-conforming documents such as receipts and post-it notes, then scan the document, verify the scan, index and file the digital documents, and then reassemble the physical documents for bulk storage, distribution, or destruction. Scanning, while considered a low level function, requires patience and adaptation to repetitive processes. There is more to scanning that loading pages into a feeder, visit www.scantips.com for more information on scanning than you ever wanted to know. One important aspect of scanning is the hardware interface drivers. Today, there are generally two well-defined standards. We recommend that your scanner utilize at least one of these. Anything else is proprietary, and for many, “proprietary” is a dirty word. The following standards are in the public domain and well established. TWAIN is a Windows Apple open standard, the most current and most likely the interface solution of choice. The TWAIN interface works with scanners connected via the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port, while ISIS is typically found to work with older model scanners using a SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) port. Either is fine, if you like the scanner and it meets your needs. Here is a little history on each. TWAIN (Technology Without An Interesting Name) is a standard for getting input from digital image devices, such as scanners and digital cameras. The standard was first released in 1992, from a collaborative effort of Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. TWAIN is typically used as an interface between image processing software and a scanner or digital camera. TWAIN is a graphics and imaging standard that allows companies to make drivers for scanners and digital cameras. Nearly all scanners on the market today are TWAIN-compliant; meaning the way they interact with your computer is based on the TWAIN standard. Having both a scanner and a digital camera installed on your computer, these devices each may install TWAIN implementations which may conflict with each other. Reread the install instructions or call the manufacturers of your hardware to resolve the conflict. ISIS (Image and Scanner Interface Specification) is an industry standard interface for image scanning technologies. It was developed by Pixel Translations in 1990, and they retain control over development and licensing. ISIS can be considered as a "big brother" to the TWAIN standard, which tends to be used on small scanner hardware for home use. ISIS-compatible scanners typically use a SCSI-2 interface, while TWAIN hardware now mostly uses USB. However, today SCSI-2 has fallen away, and USB 2.0 is the standard hardware interface to buy. ISIS has a wider feature set than TWAIN, can handle greater speeds, and also handles some aspects of image display and manipulation for the client application. Most major scanner manufacturers, including Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, Canon, and Fujitsu use the ISIS interface for their departmental and high-capacity scanner hardware. The ISIS architecture is a mutable architecture based on modules—software components that perform specific imaging functions (e.g., image acquisition, file conversion, data extraction, and file read/write commands). ISIS architecture allows for new modules to be added without making system-wide changes; you simply add what you need where it’s needed. ISIS modules interact with each other through a system of tags (data storage areas) and choices (value sets). A combination of two or more ISIS modules put together to perform a specific imaging function is called an ISIS pipe. ISIS pipes can be constructed according to each developer’s specific imaging needs. ISIS-compatible drivers are available for more than 250 scanner models, most of them certified by Pixel Translations to be compatible with any properly written ISIS application. ISIS's compatibility is further evidenced by its being the basis for the AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) MS61 standard since 1996, which is in the public domain. Capture Preparation Software One of the first questions we get is, “What is Capture Preparation Software, and why do I need it?” Capture Preparation Software is used to clean the image scanned. It removes stains, highlighter, and darkens light pixels for better readability. Kofax VirtualReScan, http://www.kofax.com/products/virtualrescan/index.asp, is an electronic checkpoint for scanned images. As quickly as images pass through the scanner, VRS performs a multi-point inspection of each document. VRS instantly checks and adjusts for alignment (skew), brightness, contrast, and image clarity. Any inconsistencies are immediately corrected by VRS so that only the straightest, most readable images are moved into your application. Distributed Capture Issues The chosen scanner should permit unlimited incremental growth at any site and in overall solution capacity. The largest distributed applications in production have up to one thousand remote sites and capture over 1 million pages per day. Prior investment should be preserved, and installation of additional scan and index stations should be straightforward. Scaling the system should not complicate administration. Ideally, the central administrator should be able to view and control each multi-station site as a single network node, regardless of the number of workstations in the node. Accommodating Departmental Requirements As a distributed capture application grows to enterprise proportions, more sophisticated requirements than scalability arise. The system may –and probably will – need to accommodate different business processes in each department. On the other hand, the administrator probably wants to limit user access to only processes developed for the specific department. This situation calls for a method of filtering the types of documents and workflows available to any individual and/or department. Filtering permits the administrator to limit end-user access to batches for which they have permission. This eliminates confusion and errors among end users and makes distributed capture a viable option on an enterprise scale or for multi-customer service bureaus. Efficient Central Administration A distributed capture application shouldn’t create new expenses in an effort to reduce old ones. For example, if the solution introduces deployment, training, and administration costs which offset reduced document shipping and speedier document processing, perhaps it isn’t the best match for the organization. Whatever solution is implemented should allow the administrator at the central site to keep tight control of access and configuration settings. When configuration changes are made centrally, remote sites should automatically be updated, ensuring that they are always synchronized with the central site. This also prevents configuration errors by workers at the remote sites who do not have the expertise (or desire) to manage a document capture system. Flexible Workflow The central administrator should also be able to control how much of the capture workflow occurs locally and how much occurs elsewhere on the network. In some cases, it may make sense for the local subject experts to index and validate documents. In others, the origination site may scan, the central site may handle an automated indexing process, and validation by live operators may occur at a low-cost offshore location. A browser-based validation module facilitates this home worker or offshore validation scenario by eliminating the need for purchase and installation of a full capture client for each validation station. The key to accommodate any organization’s chosen workflow is flexibility. Extending the Capture Architecture to Every Desktop As previously mentioned, some business processes work most efficiently when the document creators and contributors — the knowledge workers — scan and index their own work. For example, loan officers could initiate their own approval workflow faster by capturing documents they and/or their customer created rather than by sending the approval package to a scanning department, even if the scanning department is onsite. Instead, they initiate the workflow right from their desktop. |
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