While creating an Information Management Strategy, you need to determine the most important piece to getting your documents digitized and that is the scanner. There are many choices on the market ranging from low end, 25 pages per minute and up desktop scanners to production scanners that will perform at 100 pages per minute and up. Almost all have duplex scanning to scan both sides of a document.
1. Scan Speed and Duty Cycle
When determining the scanner for your organization's strategy, you want to make sure that you have one that will complete the project in the specified time frame. You will want to determine the number of documents you are looking to capture and the timeframe you are looking to complete the project in. In a lot of cases, organizations will purchase a less expensive scanner that is not designed to handle the throughput required by the project. Exceeding a scanners duty cycle places additional stress on the scanner and often results in equipment failure that may void any warranties or maintenance agreements.
2. Flatbed or Auto Feeder?
When selecting your scanner, determine the type of documents you will be scanning. If they are books or extremely delicate or odd shape documents, you may want to consider a flatbed scanner for these needs. This is a very slow option as you have to stop and restart the scanner for each scan, along with having to change the documents. Auto feeders are a better option and will allow you to stack your documents and scan them without intervention.
Most scanners do not require you to stop between batches. This continuous feed feature is something that you will want to make sure the scanner has for maximum productivity.
For production projects, you want to make sure your auto feeder can handle large batches. Typical production scanners have 300 - 500 page plus feeders. Most high production scanners feed from the left side, which allows for the use of paper joggers to get the documents in a large batch aligned for proper feeding. Without proper alignment, the number of double feeds and jams is likely to increase due to smaller documents not being fed properly.
3. Resolution
Resolution is one of the keys to getting the best image quality. Most scanners have the option to capture images at 100DPI - 600DPI in bi-tonal (black and white/ grayscale). For color, 150 DPI is typically used as it’s the best compromise between image quality and file size. Also remember, the higher the resolution, the larger your file size and also the slower the speed of the scanner. The manufactures typically give the scanner speed rated at 200 DPI landscape, so be sure to ask what the rated speed is at higher DPI’s.
4. Ability to Sort Documents
When dealing with large batches with separator sheets, batch or patch code sheets, and exception documents due to odd size (such as checks, receipts, etc.), you may want to have the scanner automatically sort these for you. For this feature to work, the scanner must have at least two output trays. This will save time and money when it comes to physically separating these types of documents from your batch after scanning. Some software companies will automatically remove the electronic image, but the issue is still removing the paper documents from the batch. A scanner with multiple output trays typically will provide you with more control over your conversion process and reduce your cost of labor.
5. Image Enhancement Features
For a clean electronic image, there must be image enhancement built into the scanner or offered via software. When scanning documents, especially Bill of Ladings and other difficult to read documents, the image can be blurry, speckled, or just impossible to read. Most scanners, especially those that were designed with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in mind, have built-in image enhancement features that will clean the image and make it more legible. There are also add-on software components that will do the same.
Another feature to consider is color dropout. This allows you to select a color for the scanner to drop out of the electronic image. This is often used in cases of highlighters. If scanned without this feature, the highlighted area will appear as a dark box. This box will cover up the text and making it illegible. Most scanners only do red, blue, or green dropout, but more sophisticated scanners have the ability to drop out any color you like by using color palette selections similar to those used in photo enhancement software solutions.
6. Imprinter and Imprint Checking
Organizations often want to have the ability to verify whether a document was scanned. To do so, an option would be for the scanner to have an imprinter. The imprinter allows you to print characters on the scanned document, which provides verification. The characters can be text or numbers, such as a project name and date.
In some cases, a file that has already been scanned and imprinted may accidentally be placed in the next batch to be scanned. If this happens, some scanners have imprint checking. This feature allows the scanner to detect there are imprinted characters on the document and reject them (preferably to an exception hopper). This then allows the scanner operator to determine whether it is ok for this image to remain in the file or deleted.
7. Consumables and Maintenance
Consumables and maintenance can become the most expensive part of a solution if you do not do the proper research on the scanner and the manufacture. Find out what the average life of scanner consumables, what is considered a consumable, and how to replace them. Most scanners only list rollers and bulbs as consumables. There are manufacturers that include bulbs as part of the warranty and/or maintenance agreement. In some cases, belts and other items that wear out are considered consumable, and these may be costly.
Maintenance and warranties are another area to consider. A typical scanner warranty should be 90 to 120 days and includes on-site repairs that cover all parts and labor. Find out how much annual scanner maintenance is and be sure to get quotations on preventative maintenance calls also. These will help to keep the scanner at rated speed and also be able to spot something that may be going bad. Consider it like a tune-up for a car.
8. Multi-Stream Color, Bi-tonal and…?
Most scanners come with the ability to scan in color, grayscale, black and white and color. If you need to have color, you will need to verify that the scanner does so. A great feature to look for is the capability to do dual or tri-stream output. The dual-stream feature allows you to capture and export a high-resolution color and a bi-tonal image in one pass from the scanner. The tri-stream feature allows the user to configure three different outputs. For instance, with a single scan, you can capture an image with color dropout to send to your forms processer, a bi-tonal image to full-page OCR, and a full-color image that can be stored for archival purposes, in both simplex and duplex modes.
There are many different options for scanners that need to be considered based on your application and size of the project. It is recommended you work with a reputable Value Added Reseller that can provide you with assistance in this area as well as the full solution. Stay away from internet resellers and order takers as you will get a good price upfront but end up paying in the long run.