Whether you are new to production scanning, or have been involved for many years, it’s tempting to believe that scanners have become a “commodity”—that most scanners are very much alike in design and functionality, and that choosing a scanning platform is no longer a critical decision when compared, for example, to the decision related to your capture or ECM software. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t shortchange the evaluation and choice of a scanner. The device you choose will be with you for many years and will be responsible for accurately capturing your paper documents efficiently and effectively.
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The following 8 factors will help you think about just how different scanning platforms can be. Consider your business needs carefully before choosing the device that is right for you—you’ll be happy that you did!
8 Factors to Consider in Choosing a Production Scanning Platform
1 -- It’s not Just about “Speeds and Feeds”.
It’s tempting to use the “pages per minute” (ppm) specs published by scanner manufacturers when choosing a scanning platform. Specs like this appear to make it very easy to compare price / performance across vendors. But concentrating on “rated speed” alone ignores many other important considerations when making a purchasing decision. Don’t rush a decision without doing your homework and asking some important questions. Taking a little time will pay dividends in the future.
2 -- “Burst” vs. “Effective” Throughput.
The published speed (ppm) of a scanner is the theoretical maximum speed that the scanner can run when it is moving paper. But the feeder will go empty, there may be a jam to clear, and operators take breaks. So the more important number to look at is the average “effective” rate. How many pages can an average operator scan in a standard 8-hour shift? Typically the “effective” rate will be a much lower number than if you had simply multiplied the “burst” rate by the number of minutes in a workday. Make sure you understand what these various numbers mean, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. In addition, many capture operations find that the true bottleneck in their image capture process is not at the scanner. How much doc prep does the scanning platform require? Too many up-front steps in preparing documents for the scanner can create processing bottlenecks and affect your ability to get your work done in a timely and efficient manner. So think beyond “speeds and feeds” and take a wider view of the entire process as you evaluate different scanning platforms.
3 -- You Have Different Kinds of Work to Scan.
Before choosing a scanner, it is important to review the variety of document types you may want to scan—both initially and in the future. Is your work primarily 8.5” x 11” documents? Or do you also have smaller pieces of paper to scan, as well? Are the documents arriving in the mail, or are they coming out of file folders or boxes? Will you ever need to image incoming envelopes to get postmark dates? What about overnight envelopes and file folders—would you ever need an image of them? Would you want to be able to scan both remittance / payment transactions and forms-based transactions on the same platform? Carefully consider the full range of documents that you plan to scan prior to looking at scanner makes and models. If you have a wide range of colored documents or a variety of light and dark types of documents, it is also important to consider how well your new scanner will image across these variations. You may want to take a set of “trouble” documents and ask your vendor to scan some images for you to look at.
4 -- Daily Volumes and Duty Cycle.
As you consider your document volumes, it’s best to take some time to forecast future daily volumes. Are your paper volumes growing or decreasing? At what rate? Will the company want to add new applications to the scanner once it is installed and in place? Are your daily volumes fairly level, or does your work have high-volume peaks at certain times of the month or year? Are you willing to run a second shift during the peak times? Or do you need to purchase enough scanning power for those peak days? Next, take some time to understand the “duty cycle” ratings of the scanners you are considering. For example, a 90ppm scanner with a 10,000 page per day duty cycle can only be run for 3-4 hours per day. If you have only “ad hoc” scanning to do, this may be more than adequate. But if the scanner is going to be run all day long, you will quickly wear out this device. On the other hand, a scanner with an “unlimited” duty cycle is built to be run all day, every day.
5 -- Redundancy.
Some people think it is smarter to purchase two or more slower scanners as opposed to one very fast scanner. If all of your scanning production depends on a single device and that device goes down, you will be unable to continue processing until the unit is repaired. But if you have two scanners and lose one, you can still get half of your work processed while the one unit is being fixed. Of course two scanners will also mean extra labor requirements, so look at this decision carefully and decide what is best for your business.
6 -- Maintenance and Consumables.
Who will be maintaining the equipment? Like any electro-mechanical device, scanners require daily operational cleaning as well as regular “preventive maintenance” to keep the scanner running and in top condition. Depending on your business needs, you may also want to be able to make “demand calls” as needed to get a technician on site same day to fix a down scanner and get you back in production. Does the scanner manufacturer maintain their products, or do they outsource this function to a third party? Have you asked for references for the maintenance service? What “consumables” does the scanner require you as the end-user to purchase on your own outside of the maintenance contract? What is the expected annual dollar outlay for these consumable parts? You may be surprised to learn how expensive these parts can be on an annual basis.
7 -- It’s all about TCO.
A useful exercise is to ask your vendor to give you some data on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the proposed scanner. This would need to include any maintenance charges and projected consumable purchases, as discussed above. Will you need to purchase a PC to attach to the scanner? Will you need a jogger? TCO should also include the labor needed to run the scanner on a monthly or annual basis. For a real look at the total cost of your scanning operation, this labor should include the scanner operators as well as the staff required to prepare documents for the scanner, including opening mail, extracting documents, sorting, batching, inserting separator sheets, etc. It is a well known fact that labor is the largest cost component of a capture operation. If one scanner requires you to scotch-tape small pieces of paper to 8.5” x 11” pages while the other accepts the small pieces without any taping, then this affects your cost. Over the lifetime of the scanners, these labor components can really add up. Another example of this: What will you need to spend on an annual basis on separator sheets? What if a scanner didn’t require these extra sheets? That could represent substantial cost savings and efficiency improvements—and your effective throughput rate goes up, as well, because you are no longer scanning those extra separators.
8 -- Scanner Intelligence.
Scanner technology has come a long way over the last twenty years. There are scanner makes and models to fit almost every need. In fact, intelligent scanner models are available today that have in-line OCR and document sorting capabilities. There are even scanners on the market that incorporate mail opening in the same device with the scanner, creating a true, all-in-one work platform for your scanning operation. Do most of your incoming documents arrive via the mail? Do you have any need to outsort specific documents? Should you consider an intelligent scanner?
Whatever your specific business needs are, and whatever functions you desire in a scanner, just remember: Not all scanners are created equal. There is a unit out there that’s best suited to meet all of your goals. You just have to do a little homework up front to ensure a great choice in your new production scanner.
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Mark K. Smith is the Director of Product Planning for OPEX Corporation, the mailroom automation and document imaging company. Mark has 25 years of experience in the data capture, forms processing and imaging industry. He holds an MBA in Information Technology from the University of Connecticut and BA in Mathematics from the University of Hartford. For more information visit www.opex.com or contact Mark at msmith@opex.com.
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