Scanning Brings New Business
Smart in-plants complement traditional print with imaging and archiving capabilities.
By Gretchen Peck
There's an old saying, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything." The same can be true of business. If you're not doing everything in your power to maintain your in-plant's health, your time may be up.
Those in-plants with a healthier prognosis are those looking outside the traditional print box to complementary services, such as imaging, archiving and document management.
When it comes to defining imaging equipment, the term "scanner" seems a bit inadequate, for imaging solutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are stand-alone; some are integrated into high-end MFPs (multi-function printers/copiers) and production-level printers. Scanning utilities can range from straight digitizing of documents to scan-to-email systems; from scan-to-archive configurations to, of course, scanning for the sake of printing.
Every in-plant must design its capabilities and services around its parent organization's needs. But once you identify scanning and document management as potential complements to print, what then? How do you determine the right solutions to put in place? How do you market these new services? How do you price them?
Scanning For Higher Education
Newell Fogelberg is the director of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He's been with the University for more than 16 years—originally, as the manager of printing, and then as the director of Printing and Copying Services. The department changed its name to Imaging Services after expanding to encompass the Testing and Assessment Center and the Campus Printing Initiative, which manages printing for pay off computers in the computer labs and around campus.
"Scanning is our newest venture," Fogelberg asserts. "More and more information is going into an electronic format from paper.
"As one of my mentors said, 'The train is coming. You can stand on the platform and watch it go by; you can stand in front of it and try to stop it and get squashed. Or you can get on the train and ride it.' We're trying to get on the train," Fogelberg explains.
Fogelberg's colleague, Brian Groves, who provides IT support for the Imaging Services department, explains that they're currently running Alchemy 7.6 on a Windows 2003 server for document management, and have two Canon devices for scanning—a Canon DR-6080 (black and white) and a Canon 8000F (color). Fogelberg notes that it's been easy to "market" imaging services within the university's community.
"Our department has always been successful by creating strong on-campus partnerships," Fogelberg remarks. "We are marketing slowly, … more by existing campus relationship than in a general sense. And we're in the midst of setting up a survey of potential campus clients."
What types of imaging jobs has the print center taken on? "We are currently working with the libraries—especially the reserve room—to set up a workflow. We are also in communication with the administration about converting our warehouse full of paper-stored information into electronic documents," Fogelberg says. The jobs range from those bound for print, to CD-ROM, or to a Web site.
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Imaging at Purdue In-Plant Graphics spoke with Steven C. Cook, assistant director and production manager at Purdue University Printing Services, in West Lafayette, Ind., about the role "document digitization" plays there. Why offer scanning and archiving? "Most in-plants have an abundance of paper copy that needs to be filed. With today's digital devices—with scan-one-print-many features—it makes sense to use the scanner for other purposes." How much business do you get? "Currently, it's about only two percent of total operation." Who's buying scans? "Our customers are the College of Engineering, the Graduate School, the Board of Trustees, Radiological and Environmental Management, and soon, the Police Department. We are scanning enrollment forms, grade reports, personnel files, MSDS sheets, board minutes." How do you do it? "We have a Kodak i280 and also use a Xerox DigiPath scanner. With either system, we save the documents to a PDF format. … Most all of our work is for archival." Marketing and pricing:
"Right now, marketing is more work-of-mouth across campus. We have priced each scanned document around the same price to a print copy. Additional charges would include things like OCRing, bookmarking, etc." Advice for colleagues?
"I would suggest looking and seeing how much paper your in-plant retains. Also, how much time is spent retrieving documents? Get a small sample from your records department and scan those. Set up some searching schema on the media—such a text search, bookmarks if you save to PDF, or create a full database. This gives you something to demonstrate and let your potential customer touch." |
"We are currently archiving the Book Store's financial records as a prototype [workflow]…saving the documents as .pdf files," Groves explains.
As with all new business ventures, getting into imaging services requires an investment in both equipment and training. But for the university, training wasn't much of a concern.
"Some of the technical know-how was resident in our shops already, because of our familiarity with graphics applications," Fogelberg admits.
"One thing we've found is that you have to define your service carefully," Fogelberg explains. "Usually, when people find out you scan, they want you to scan, archive, index, and then move into data management. That's exciting, because it opens a whole new business structure and new revenue streams. But if you're not prepared to take that step, it can be daunting. Do your homework first, and make sure you have good technical staff."
A Partnership In New Opportunity
At John Hancock Financial Services, in Hyde Park, Mass., customers of the Document Solutions Group can arrange to have their document scanning done at the same time they bring their print projects in.
"In conjunction with [our imaging and records management] group, what we're able to do is provide a single contact for people to begin," explains Scott London, general director. "Most companies have to deal with multiple providers—be it a design shop, a commercial print firm, a variable-text or mail house, a pre-sort shop—and then go and deal with another company to help with the records retention, archival and retrieval. Our customers…are able to do all of that work just by contacting Bev's staff."
"Bev" is Beverly Heaslip, John Hancock's manager of the imaging and records management group, where currently, the majority of digital document imaging is performed.
"We began imaging, not really in conjunction with our whole printing and graphics services, but more as a separate business initiative to image policy-holder information. We're an insurance company, so scanning was initially customer-service focused for us," Heaslip recalls.
"Over time, as our scanning volumes stabilized, we had excess capacity with our existing scanning equipment," she adds, "and we were able to use it for other purposes and offer imaging to different areas within the company. Now, we scan everything from accounts payable records to contracts and other miscellaneous office-type documents."
Heaslip estimates that most of the document digitizing her department performs is destined for archival.
"Usually, it's something that's currently sitting in a department, in paper format, and they want to be able to keep the document in digital form, but also have better access to its information." Kodak high-speed scanners are used to save digital documents as TIFFs, which are either burned to CDs or placed on a central server.
While TIFFs are the preferred file format to output in Heaslip's department, London suggests that PDF is most often the electronic format produced in his.
"We're finding, on the graphics side, a significant amount of work is moving away from straight print services to design and output of PDFs for storing in some electronic library. That way, they're available for download for one- or two-off somewhere down the road."
PDF has a profound impact on the Document Solutions Group's operations, he admits. "We've seen it has impacted us and driven down our volume of digital printing. … PDF has had a significant impact on our print-on-demand business."
The in-plant operation uses two DocuTech 6135s and two DocuTech 6115s, driven by DigiPath digital front ends (DFEs), for digital printing, scan-to-digital printing, or scan to digital file, he explains.
What's The Charge?
A significant consideration for in-plants, before they can offer scanning services, is cost and price.
"In our case, we charge by the image," Heaslip says. "If there's prepping involved, then we charge an hourly rate to prep the documents. And if there's indexing involved, we price that by keystroke or character."
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"Many internal departments have a desire and a need for imaging services."
--Beverly Heaslip
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"We very much mirror how service bureaus do it," London adds.
"We calculated what our costs were and broke it down into components, and then compared that to what the service bureaus in the area are charging—just to be sure our internal costs were competitive," Heaslip concurs. "What we've found is that many, many internal departments have a desire and a need for imaging services. A lot of areas would like to take their old paper files, make them digital, access them more easily, or even have multiple people be able to access them and work on them at the same time."
But be prepared to try to be all things to all people, Heaslip cautions,
"You need to have equipment and software that are pretty flexible, in order to meet different needs for different clients," she says.
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Top Tips: Before You Scan...
• Identify the need: Resist taking a blind leap of faith. Measure the demand and opportunity first.
• Know the costs: Consider everyone involved in the workflow, from time and materials to overhead and personnel.
• Set smart pricing: Study your competition to see what others are charging. Calculate your costs to determine pricing that's economical for you and your customer.
• Don't forget to market: How will you get the word out? You'll need time and resources to do this.
• Evaluate the impact: Analyze if-then scenarios to determine the impact of scanning and document management services on your traditional print business and workflow.
• Invest in flexible equipment: Whether you're repurposing existing scanning equipment (MFP devices or digital print engines with built-in scanners) or planning to invest in new equipment, make sure the devices are flexible, enabling your organization to image a range of documents for a variety of purposes.
• Invest in the right people: Find people already equipped to oversee imaging operations, or who aren't afraid to learn.
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Scanning and MFP Solutions
Stand-alone Scanning Systems
• Aztek: Plateau Flat Bed scanners; Premier Drum scanners (www.aztek.com)
• Canon: Canon DR-series Color Production Scanners (www.usa.canon.com)
• Context Scanning Technologies: Magnum, Chroma, Crystal, Hawk-Eye, and Chameleon families of scanners (www.contex.com)
• Creo: EverSmart scanners; iQsmart scanners; and Renaissance copy-dot scanners (www.creo.com)
• EPSON: Epson Perfection 4870 PRO; Epson Expression Professional scanners; and Epson GT-series scanners (www.epson.com)
• Hewlett-Packard: HP Scanjet Digital Flatbed scanners (www.hp.com)
• Kodak Professional: Kodak Digital Science Scanner 3520, 3590C, 4500, 7520, 9520; Kodak i600 series; Kodak i800 series
• Konica Minolta: MDS 2120 and PS7000 scanners (www.konicaminolta.us/)
• Lanier, a Ricoh Co.: Lanier IS-series scanners (www.lanier.com)
• Océ Printing Systems: Oce DS10 Document Production Scanner (www.oceusa.com)
• Ricoh: Ricoh IS450xx-series Scanners (www.ricoh-usa.com)
• UMAX Technologies: UMAX PowerLook 1000-/2100-series scanners; UMAX AV-series Document Scanners (www.umax.com)
• Xerox Corporation: DigiPath scanners; Xerox DocuMate 252 duplex scanner (www.xerox.com)
MULTIFUNCTION AND PRODUCTION-LEVEL SCANNING/PRINTING SYSTEMS
• Canon: Canon CLC series Digital Color Copiers; imageRUNNER series Digital Copier/Printers (www.usa.canon.com)
• Hewlett-Packard: HP Color 9850mfp; HP LaserJet 9000-xx MFP series; HP 9085 MFP
• IBM Printing Systems: IBM Infoprint-series Cut-Sheet Production Printers (www.printers.ibm.com)
• Konica Minolta: Force 65/75/85 Production Printers; CF5001 Color Production Printer/Copiers (www.konicaminolta.us/)
• KyoceraMita: KM-xx-series Enterprise/Workgroup Multifunction Systems; KM-Cxx-series Workgroup/Enterprise Full-Color/Monochrome Multifunction Systems (www.kyoceramita.com)
• Lanier, a Ricoh Co.: Lanier LD-, LC- and LP-series black-and-white or color MFPs (www.lanier.com)
• Lexmark: Lexmark X-series MFPs (www.lexmark.com)
• Océ Printing Systems: Océ VarioPrint 2000 series of Multifunction Printing Systems; Océ 3275/3275II MFPs; Océ CPS 700 and CPS 900 Full-Color Production Systems (www.oceusa.com)
• Ricoh: Aficio-series Multifunction Color and Black-and-White Systems (www.ricoh-usa.com)
• Riso: Riso M-series MFPs (www.riso.com)
• Xerox Corporation: WorkCentre Pro 32/40 Color Multifunction Systems; WorkCentre Pro B/W MFPs; DocuColor family of Copier/Printers; Nuvera 100/120 Digital Copier/Printer (www.xerox.com)
