The Green Sheet 021

THE j jy

Full coverage o! the Document Management industry, in all its forms.

SHEET

INCORPORATING THE MICROGRAPHICS MARKET PLACE AND THE MICROGRAPHICS NEWSLETTER Issue NO. 21

ISSN 1476-3842

Records Managem ent within Government Departments

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SEPTEMBER 2003

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Document Imaging, Data Conversion, Data Preservation, Web Image Archive

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. CROWLEY Micrographics

Crowley Micrographics Announces Crowley Micrographics Acquires Mekel Technology, Houston Fearless and Extek Product Lines Frederick, Maryland - September 03, 2003 - Crowley Micrographics, Inc. (Crowley) announced it has purchased of the assets, including inventory, of Mekel Technology, Inc. (M ekel) from the HF Group. Terms of the acquisition, which was completed and effective August 29, 200 3 , were not disclosed. Both Crowley and HF Group are privately held. At the same tim e, Crowley purchased from HF Group the exclusive rights in and exclusive distribution of the Houston Fearless film processor and Extek Microsystems microfilm product lines.

A new wholly owned subsidiary, Mekel Technology, Inc. (a Maryland corporation) has been formed

by Christopher Crowley and Patrick Crowley, co-owners of Crowley, to operate the Mekel business.

The new subsidiary will be located in Frederick, Maryland. Mekel's manufacturing facility will remain in California but move to a new location in Pomona. "The purchase of Mekel will benefit present and prospective Mekel users," said Christopher Crowley, president, Crowley Micrographics. "Customers don't have to worry about new sources or newcomers to the industry. They can look forward to the same service as before and from the same people. We know the product line well and the industry knows us" The newly-acquired Houston Fearless and Extek product lines will be marketed by the new Houston Fearless and Extek Microsystems divisions of Crowley.

About Crowley Micrographics

ZEUTSCHEL Crowley was started in 1980 by Jerry Crowley, who passed away in 1996. His sons, Christopher Crowley and Patrick Crowley, are co-owners of th e firm . Crowley has been a distributor of a varied line of first analog (m icrofilm) and now also digital imaging products. Additionally it provides parts and services for these products. Crowley also is the exclusive North American distributor of Zeutschel (G erm any) scanners, micrographic and hybrid equipment. Zeutschel library cameras and scanners are considered to be the top-of- the-line in their fields and are found in m ajor libraries around the world. Patrick Crowley said the Mekel and Zeutschel analog and digital lines are com plem entary and compatible. The acquisition has created one m ajor player with a proven track record of performance and quality in both analog and digital preservation. The film-based industry knows we are not a dot.com or startup. W e've been around for 25 years and look forward to the next 25". Crowley has other offices in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Gettysburg, Phoenix, Toronto, Atlanta, Denver, New Orleans and now also Pomona, California. Company Website: http://www.crowleym icrographics.com

About Mekel Technology Mekel Technology is best known for its production volume microfilm scanners but it also manufactures photo-citation systems, film transports, and does contact manufacturing. Several new models of Mekel film scanners are planned for introduction at the forthcoming ARMA International Conference and Exposition in Boston (Oct. 1 9 -2 2 , 2 0 0 3 ) and the A IIM International Conference and Exposition in New York (March 7 -1 0 , 2 0 0 4 ). The introductions will include Mekel film scanner models 6 2 5 , 625 HS and 6 6 5 , high speed grayscale rollfilm and microfiche scanners. Mekel's new headquarters address is: Mekel Technology, In c., 5115 Pegasus Court, Suite E, Frederick MD, phone: 3 0 1 -6 3 1 -6 7 6 2 ; fax: 3 0 1 -6 3 1 - 9 4 66; Mekel's new factory/m anufacturing address is Mekel Technology, In c., 2809 Pomona Boulevard, Pomona CA 9 1 7 6 8 Company Website: http://w w w .M ekel.com

About HF Group

H F

HF Group is a diverse manufacturing company based in Los Angeles, California. Formerly called Houston Fearless 76, it is best known as a leader in providing film-based equipm ent to several industries. The company developed the first autom ated film processor in the 1930s and has served private sector and governm ent customers worldwide in the motion picture, micrographics and color photo industries. With a rich history of introducing innovative products th a t later became industry standards, HF Group recently has focused on developing w ater purification and waste w ater treatm en t systems. Its governm ent division has created sta te -o f-th e -a rt technologies in advanced UV and low tem perature distillation systems. HF has established a commercial pollution control business at its Los Angeles headquarters. M.S. Lee, Chairman and CEO, stated, "HF must look towards the future to grow and establish itself in an expanding industry. In the past we have solved environmental problems for our film processor customers. Now HF is solving problems in other industries." James Lee is HF Group's President and Chief Operating Officer, and M.S. Lee and he are charting the new direction for the company. Company Website: h ttp ://w w w .m vh fi.co m

Mekel Technology Press Contact: Chris Crowley

HF Group Press Contact: James Lee

Christopher Crowley President email: chrisc@mekel.com voice: 3 0 1 -6 3 1 -6 7 6 2

James Lee President and COO email: iamesl@ mvhfi.com

J U S T FOR THE R E C O R D ! !

With the myriad terms confronting document controllers and records managers today; there is the potential for confusion and falling foul of the law.

Alan Williams, Principal of Consulting for Xerox Global Services, seeks to explain the differences.

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Introduction Company lawyers could be forgiven if they were to plead ignorance when asked to explain the difference between records management, document management, content management - confusion management! So it is only natural that they turn to the Records Manager for help in deciphering the nuances.

Records management has risen up the corporate agenda somewhat since the introduction of new legislation such as the UK Freedom of Information Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US, particularly in the area of electronic records. Failure to effectively manage critical corporate information in electronic form, particularly financial documents, could now land badly informed CEOs in prison, so Records Management as a discipline has risen in importance in a relatively short space of time. And given that ignorance is no defence in the law, how Records Managers distinguish between the three terms “record”, “content” and “document” - and how they approach the management of each, can be essential.

Records M anagement (RM) Records Management has traditionally focussed on the world of paper, but businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on electronic and digital methods of communication and information capture. The International Standards Organisation defines a record to be “information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organisation or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business.” (ISO 15489:Part 2). Organisations may extend this definition to encompass all information that should be maintained for operational, legal, fiscal, historical or other purposes. Basically, records show evidence of business and can exist in the form of, for example, paper documents, electronic documents, e-mail correspondence, voice mail messages, esignatures, electronic authorisations and hand-written notes.

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Electronic Document Management (EDM) EDM can be regarded as a field concerned with the flow, management and distribution of documents, both digital and physical, around a company in the course of its operations.

Documents have moved on from the pre-pc world of purely paper-based environments and now encompass digital formats, and company document control departments and business process managers need to be able to control and manage multi­ version digital files such as Word files, Internet pages and jpeg images, as well as the paper documents - which show few signs of decreasing in volume. EDM is concerned with ensuring that electronic documents are secure, accessible, accurate and relevant to the organisation. If a company employee in Birmingham is discussing the design of a ventilation system over the phone with the on-site engineer in Nigeria, they need

to be confident they are both looking at, not only the same drawing, but also the same version of the drawing - that is what EDM delivers.

Content Management (CM) Content can be created once but distributed over multiple channels and updated dynamically. CM is therefore associated with objects that may be used multiple times in multiple places in multiple forms but does not necessarily consist of the material of such legal status as “records”. A whole document or a portion of a document can both constitute a piece of content.

For example a CV can be a piece of content. A photograph can be a content object. A photograph embedded in a CV text file can be a content object. But so can the name, address and telephone number details on the CV text file. If one can imagine it being used in a variety of ways, places, formats - it can be content.

The Importance of RM Of the three, although many organisations have already invested in EDM or CM systems, it is actually Records Management that is the most critical to a company’s long-term legal and financial accountability. If companies cannot find records, or they are unable to prove that the records are authentic, or worst of all, they have inadvertently destroyed records that they were obliged to keep under the law, a lengthy jail sentence could be the price for the CEO. This is widely recognised and provided for in most companies - but only as far as paper records. Organisations need to become alive to the exposure they currently face regarding their electronic records and should seek to adapt and exploit existing EDM/CM systems to help build an enterprise records management capability.

The Approach Companies undergoing a review of Records Management must start with clear and realistic objectives of what they want to achieve and develop a policy to support it.

A policy helps to recognise three basic objectives to be built into the records management programme: 1) Meet statutory obligations - e.g. financial or employee records 2) Service operational needs - e.g. engineering drawings or quote packages 3) Preserve items of historical value - e.g. expired patents and old equipment specifications Creating policy introduces the need for internal compliance to RM demands, and provides the platform for governance by the organisation, leading to insurance against complacent auditing, easier retrieval of documents and more effective use of storage.

If at all possible, organisations should seek to appoint a dedicated records management professional.

The first step may be to engage specialists to help measure the current state of records management at the company. Many companies just do not possess the experience in-house so the next best thing is to trust those with a proven track record.

Next, establish and implement effective policies - human compliance is more important than IT; if people do not believe in your RM system, then you cannot be successful.

Establish a qualify Records Management programme to train staff in their responsibilities and make conformance to RM processes easy. Communicate plans, educate people in the consequences of non-conformance and properly plan the introduction of systems. Finally, monitor and audit internal compliance, encourage and analyse feedback from users and Records Managers and act upon it There has never been so much emphasis placed on the importance of Records Management; Records Managers now have a golden opportunity to make themselves known, and relied upon, as a critical part of the business community.

MANAGING BRITAIN'S MICROFILM LEGACY

PAGE 5

Policy will clearly define what documents are considered to be “records” and identify organisational procedures for the administration and management of electronic records, such as document approval, authorisation of disposal, management of approved systems. For companies new to the field of electronic records management, it may be useful to make use of experienced consultants to help set strategic direction, define policy and determine the need for associated procedures.

AM I The Advance Group Tel: 01902 459907 E-mail: docman@ami.co.uk www.ami.co.uk

Top Image Systems announces Global Partnership w ith Oracle Israeli based Top Image Systems Ltd. (TiS), a leader in enterprise solutions that improve enterprise business processes by integrating information of different types and from multiple sources into corporate information systems, has become an Independent Software Vendor (1SV) of the Oracle Partner Network.

As an ISV partner, TiS will have access to the services provided by Oracle 9i solutions and the eBusiness Suite, as well as many other web-based resources designed to enhance its value proposition, broaden opportunities, and extend its reach into the marketplace. This partnership provides TiS with access to Oracle worldwide sales and marketing programmes, and to Oracle’s vast pool of ERP and financial customers in all regions. It will allow TiS a unique exposure to customers who use advanced financial and logistics applications, which are the strategic market segments TiS is currently focusing on. In addition, TiS will enjoy premium support discounts, hosted development, online technical resources, as well as architecture and design services.

TiS joined the Oracle partnership programme after witnessing a great demand from customers across the globe, to integrate with the Oracle eBusiness Suite. This integration fits well with TiS vision, which includes achieving connectivity between the eFLOW platform and all main enterprise management applications (CRM, ERP, ECM, and

workflow). It will help TiS customers to fully realise the benefits of both companies’ solutions.

Oracle’s customers will benefit from the eFLOW platform solution, which offers enterpriselevel data capture and processing capabilities, the ability to convert all types of information into business-ready content, and delivery into enterprise systems.

TiS eFLOW platform dramatically increases data delivery speed and accuracy, while reducing human intervention in handling incoming information, data, and documents, such as invoices, purchase orders and freight bills. eFLOW accurately extracts data from different types of documents, and seamlessly delivers captured data to Oracle eBusiness applications.

Oracle customers implementing eFLOW will experience a dramatic reduction in data entry resources, and eliminate mistakes leading to late payments, over or under payments, and late charges. These benefits will greatly improve their bottom line, relationships with their vendors, customers, and partners, while enabling them to achieve a typical ROI of 12 months or less.

Contact: adi@TopImageSystems.com or visit the company’s web site at: www.ToplmageSystems.com.

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CASE STUDIES

San Diego scans, films, indexes and rescans 2 6,000 official images per day The Office of the San Diego (California) County Assessor/Recorder County Clerk (ARCC) m aintains all recorded documents for San Diego County. By law it is required to keep a permanent copy of county property records and official documents. This includes parcel maps, deeds, liens, judgments and other official property records. In a paper-based system this information was difficult to manage and public accessibility was limited. To meet ARCC’s imaging and storage needs, it turned to an optical archival system.

Because of an increasing amount of information, an economy that (until recently) was rapidly expanding and a booming population, it was imperative for ARCC to speed up its recording process. “We had to do that and control operating costs and, at the same time make it easier for real estate companies and property owners to locate property information”, said Gregory Smith,the San Diego County Assessor/Recorder Count Clerk.

Approximately 800,000 property documents, many consisting of multiple pages, are routed through the department annually. Under the prior system, each document was filmed on a planetary camera. Within a few weeks, a microfilm copy was made available for public reference at a central location, the County Administration Center. This meant some property owners had to travel over 40 miles to access the documents.

In addition, ARCC staff members responding to inquiries had to shuffle through paper files to locate the requested information and then refile the paperwork, opening the door for misfiles.

To solve its imaging and accessibility problems, ARCC turned to Wave Imaging Corporation, a document management

solution provider. Wave created a system in which a Kodak Digital Science Document Scanner/Microimager 990D is used to scan, film, index and rescan nearly 26,000 images per day.

As images are microfilmed and sent out to title companies, digital images are stored in an optical disk library. The images are imported on to ARCC’s LAN for networkwide access.

During the night, the images are burned onto compact disks.

Then, for official archival records, ARCC uses a Kodak Document Archive Writer. After the images are scanned, they are viewed for quality control. When that process is completed the film is created on the Archive Writer. Because of the quality control, there are no splices or retakes according to Smith.

“We’ve been able to eliminate cutting and splicing film completely. We can now digitise the images, conduct a quality check, and group the images up front. At the end of the day we let the Archive Writer convert the digital images to a roll of 16mm film”, Smith said.

This system allows information to be available to the public within 24 hours of scanning and, because of the networkwide capabilities, the public now has easier access at five regional offices. Meanwhile ARCC staff members can view maps and documents from their own workstations, eliminating the paper shuffle required in the prior system.

“In addition, on a daily basis we can sell packages of recorded documents that are saved on the internet or CD,” Smith said.

ARCC also distributes indexed quality-controlled images of each day’s recordings to two separate title plants, generating new revenue for the department.

Guilford County Register of Deeds finds success w ith Wicks & Wilson scanner The Challenge The office of the Register of Deeds in Guilford County is like any other county. They constantly record and update land records, including Deeds, Deeds of Trust, Plans and UCC Fixture Filings. In addition to their real estate responsibilities, they also record and maintain Vital Records, including births, deaths, marriage licenses and military discharges.

In furthering the goal of improving services to the public, the Register of Deeds was in search of a way to provide recorded information and document retrieval via the Internet. They also wanted to convert their Vital Records into a database. LASON accepted the challenge and offered a variety of options to present a total solution.

LASON Solution The first component included a Triway Imaging System (a LASON system designed specifically for use by Registers of Deeds). The system provides image display and retrieval.

Secondly, LASON added the Wicks ft Wilson 4100 Roll Film Scanstation to allow Guilford County to convert their backlog of land records from microfilm to digital images. Scanning 16mm microfilm on the Wicks and Wilson Scanstation, Guilford County digitally converts thousands of images a day.

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LASON provided over a terabyte of storage, and Guilford County Register of Deeds Records are now easily accessible online.

The Wicks ft Wilson 4100 Scanstation is a key component in the success of the system. The Scanstation is designed to scan both 16mm and 35mm film and is a full-featured roll film scanner. Offering features such as blip code detection, image sizing and 256 level grayscale, the Wicks ft Wilson easily fits into any film-to-digital conversion solution.

The Result “LASON Triway and the Wicks ft Wilson converter system are great. In addition to scanning, the system allows us to qualitycheck our converted images at the time of scanning, or we can hold in batch until a later time, if necessaiy. Once they are checked for quality, the scanned images are immediately available online”, stated Katherine Lee Payne, Guilford County Register of Deeds. “The entire system is simple to operate and very user-friendly. My staff mastered the process in a very short period of time. We did not have to add additional staff, and by doing the conversion in-house, we will save our County several hundred thousand dollars.”

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CASE STUDY

Warwickshire County Council found a time and money-saving method o f logging information during a census drive that in itself was looking at the council’s investment of resources.

Every two years local authorities in England are required, by the Department of Health, to undertake a Children in Need, data collection exercise (C1N Census). The aim of the collection is to gather detailed activity and expenditure information associated with running children’s social services in a typical, week.

Warwickshire’s experience of running the first CIN Census in 2000 taught them that the process was, in itself, a strain on resources.

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Children’s Planning Officer, Rebecca Johnson, called in information specialists ImageFast and together they developed a highly effective forms processing system that could prove useful to county councils across the country.

Rebecca says: “Manually inputting activity and expenditure data on to the database supplied by the Department of Health is one of the most time consuming parts of the census process. In 2000 it took one full-time administrator, with support from planning staff, around three months to complete.

“Due to the large resource commitment needed to complete the census in 2000 we decided to explore other methods that would provide better value for money.”

The Children’s Planning Section of Warwickshire Social Services Department was already in contact with ImageFast, a company which specialises in information management technology. They had already purchased a forms processing and scanning system from the company to assist day to day operations. They simply asked Imagefast to consider ways in which the system could be tailored to extract data electronically from the activity and expenditure forms completed by social work teams.

“Every day county councils and local councils are being tasked with carrying out questionnaires and surveys to ensure that they have up-to-date information relating to the work they carry out. Without these surveys they cannot be sure they are meeting the needs of their customers. At the same time, they are accountable for every penny they spend.

“Surveys can be a drain on resources and that is where our systems come in. For a comparatively small investment they can be sure they are managing their staff time more efficiently every time they have to fill in a form.”

Off the back of the CIN project the county council is also using an information management system supplied by ImageFast Lookedafterchildren, Wizard.

Rebecca says: “This system helps in our day-to-day work.

Independent Reviewing Officers complete the Wizard after undertaking a review of a child in our care. The information is then converted into Microsoft Access, where we can monitor compliance and manage future bookings, and Microsoft Word where we can send out a paper record to those who attended the review. The whole programme helps us to keep up-to-date with information about our children and help us to meet their needs more efficiently.”

Contact: ImageFast Ltd., Kingswood House, The Avenue, Northampton, NN1 5BT, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1604 585885 Fax: +44 (0)1604 627045 Email: info@imagefast.eo.uk or visit www.imagefast.eo.uk

ImageFast investigated and researched the issues and technicalities involved in the project and began work on their solution. They designed forms based on those supplied by the Department of Health (DoH), using the Cardiff Teleform software package.

Scan Aperture Cards and 35mm Roll Film

On receipt of the completed forms from social work teams post­ census, the data was scanned and information required for the CIN census was extracted using intelligent character recognition technology for handwriting, form recognition and optical mark recognition for tick boxes. Once fed through the scanner, the extracted data was validated, requiring minimum manual correction in the instances where numbers and letters were not recognised or where data recorded was outside the specified census week.

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Once the scanning process was complete the information was held in a software application, Forms Processing Release, developed specifically by ImageFast.

ImageFast were in contact with the DoH during the development of the application to ensure it would link to the CIN database without problems.

The whole process of submitting the information from the activity and expenditure forms on to the CIN database took approximately two and a half to three weeks for one member of staff to complete.

A major saving on time compared with 2000.

Rebecca says: “We found the whole process for inputting extremely efficient. Not only was it cost-effective in terms of saving time, it also produced more accurate information because the risk of human error on inputting was dramatically reduced. The county council will be using the same system for any forthcoming censuses.

Riccardo Emanuele, Managing Director of ImageFast, says: “We created a forms processing system that was simple to operate and, at the same time, worked in harmony with the DoH created database.

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COUNTY COUNCIL SAVES TIME AND MONEY

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casestudies jj

^ Social Security Administration

foresees big savings Each year the U.S. Social Security Adm inistration (SSA) processes more than 200 m illio n wage-reporting forms, 60 m illio n o f w h ich are paper forms. To ensure the long-term preservation o f the inform ation on the paper forms, w h ile meeting dem anding processing deadlines, the SSA turned to integrated im aging technology.

SSA’s Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Operation Center (WBDOC) is responsible for capturing and preserving data from the annual wage reporting form, commonly known as the W-2. Each year, WBDOC processes 60 million paper W-2 forms from all U.S. states and territories, including Puerto Rico, Pacific islands, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. Since SSA and Internal Revenue Service use the W-2 forms to investigate any problems with employer and employee posted earnings, the information on the W-2s must be preserved forever.

forms were processed using Kodak 7500 scanners and both Top Imaging Systems image/data capture software and ASI image/data capture software. The Archive Writer then wrote the records back onto microfilm for permanent storage.

Although the WBDOC have operated an integrated image-based data capture system since 1994, that system is no longer maintained by the manufacturer. In addition, that system does not have the capabilities to process today’s forms and smaller fonts efficiently. Looking for assistance as the 21st century began, SSA turned to Eastman Kodak since it was already using Kodak scanners to process documents.

The pilot was so successful that SSA purchased four Kodak 9520 document scanners, one 9500 series scanner, the Top Imaging software, and five Document Archive Writers. These replaced the earlier scanners SSA had.

Kodak suggested its Kodak Integrated Imaging Technology, which converts hard copy data to digital files via document scanning and then writes those same digital files to Archive Storage Media (microfilm). From May through August 2000, in anticipation of the major census of that year, the WBDOC ran a pilot programme to test the feasibility of using Kodak scanners and the Document Archive Writer to process the W-2 forms.

During the pilot, more than 7 million pages and 12 million W-2

Today SSA processes more than 400,000 forms per day with 1,200 employees working around the clock. The agency is happy with its new system. Mark Strickler, automated data processing supervisor, said its efficiency is providing big savings. He added, “We also expect to achieve better quality microfilm output from the Archive Writer, which is critical to attaining our long-term preservation goals.”

German pension agency combines microfilm storage with electronic document distribution The Federal Insurance Institute fo r Salaried Employees (BfA) is the central government organisation handling pensions for salaried employees in Germany.

Based in Berlin, BfA’s work covers literally everything related to pensions. Traditionally the organisation has maintained its administrative documents on microfilm because of the need for long-term archival storage, easy access and high quality reproduction.

Until recently the work was carried out using 30 analogue reader-printers but the units were no longer capable of meeting demand as volume rose. Requests for documents and information continued to rise until the staff in BfA’s microfilm management centre was receiving up to 1,500 requests daily for microfilmed files. This meant reproducing approximately 72,000 microfilmed images daily.

PAGE 8

The institute turned to a systems integrator, SRZ, to develop a powerful but flexible solution that would combine the virtues of microfilm storage and utilise the existing information base with fast electronic distribution of data across the BfA in-house network. The solution combines Kodak Intelligent Microimage Scanners, a centralised Minolta printer system, a separate network and a special software package developed by SRZ, ProScan on Demand.

The core of the solution are 17 Kodak Microimage Scanners linked to two print servers that handle central printing, each controlling four printers that can print up to 64 pages a minute.

Each morning the requested data is fed into the production system developed by SRZ.

The required microfilms can be loaded into any one of the 17 microfilm scanners and the operator only has to specify the file type. The film number is read from the IC code and the scanning programme automatically fetches the items to be digitised from the database. The Microimage Scanner moves to the exact position of the corresponding image address and then scans the document concerned. If there are several items on one film cartridge, all documents are digitised immediately.

During the scanning process, ProScan On Demand carries out automatic image processing. The front and back of the duplex images are depicted separately without black edges and in a reader-friendly way. This means the administrator who has requested data receives only the relevant information. After this step, another SRZ software programme prepares the TIFF files for transfer to the print server.

BfA is happy with the system. It finds the Microimage Scanners easier to maintain and operate than conventional analogue reader-printers and the automatic image processing provides the end user with very high quality information. Much of the distribution has been by physical delivery via BfA’s internal mail operation but the system also enables direct delivery by distribution over the organisation’s intranet. BfA is currently working with SRZ on developing an online data transmission system that will replace the physical delivery, each day, of masses of documents to various parts of Berlin and adjoining areas Where BfA has locations.

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w hat do you do when your old system is no longer supported?

Ever since many employees could remember, the Shelby County, Alabama Probate Office utilised a Wang system to record and access deeds, mortgages and other land-andproperty use documents. But with Wang no longer functioning as a company, parts and service became harder and harder to obtain.

W hat to do?

Late in 2002, Deputy Clerk Suzanne Smith and Chief Clerk Kim Melton began to work with country management as part of their search for a new solution that would offer streamlined records acquisition and safe back-up. Their goal was to develop a recording and management strategy that could be applied to all county records.

At the time documents were scanned and stored on PCs. A second process saw the same documents microfilmed. In addition to the time and money devoted to both processes, there were workflow issues, such as refilming of problem images, plus the difficulty of organising all related documents onto a single roll of film. At times, this created indexing nightmares and made the retrieval process cumbersome.

UNISYS was selected as the primary contractor to develop a new system and they enlisted the expertise of AmCad, an independent consulting and development firm headquartered in Reston, Virginia. AmCad’s expertise in geographic and land information systems allowed them to work with scores of city, county and state agencies in improving the way the agencies deliver information and services to the public and also preserve valuable documents.

The first challenge was to address the concerns of the Probate Office, which is responsible for maintaining records in

perpetuity and providing a back-up copy on microfilm, as required by law. “We need to preserve over 300 different types of documents,” says Melton. “These include deeds, titles, mortgages, liens, releases, judgments, incorporations, and a load more.”

The key to AmCad’s proposed solution was a Kodak Document Archive Writer and AmCAd’s records management application, the Land Information System (LIS). LIS is a fully integrated application that includes cashiering, indexing, scanning, workflow management, internet access, systems administration and management reporting. It was being used to help automate all aspects of the Recorder’s Office.

The Archive Writer fit in perfectly with the LIS software programme. It also enabled the two processes - scanning and microfilming documents - to be combined into one, saving time and money. “The Document Archive Writer does a beautiful job of logically ordering and indexing our documents,” said Suzanne Smith. “Now we can group images in an intelligent manner and, at the end of the day, let the Archive Writer convert them to microfilm. And the protection of having everything on a storage media that lasts a very long time and offers instant access, if it’s ever needed, provides a good feeling of security.”

“We’ve been able to handle increased volumes of documents with no increase in staff or overtime,” she added. “The whole solution has just made it much easier and more efficient for us to record, verily and safeguard all our documents.”

While the Probate Office was the first step in the process, other Shelby County records are now being prepared for similar safeguarding

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casestudy

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State Imaging Departments survive Economic Downturn M a n y ar e d o i n g r e l a t i v e l y we l l wi t h m i c r o f i l m m e d i u m , but e l e c t r o n i c i m a g i n g is s u r g i n g

- s t i l l the st a pl e

State governments in the United States are in bad shape physically and taking drastic steps to close huge budget gaps.

They must because by law States, unlike the Federal Government, cannot run deficits, and only three of the 50 states are breaking even or showing budget surpluses.

be going more slowly. The user agencies are deep into the cut spending paradigm and are carefully weighing what has to be done and when, even though the expense involved may be largely a paper charge. Still it’s measured as part of the department’s budget.

As a result, the state of Missouri is unscrewing every third light bulb in the halls and lobbies of government buildings to lower the electricity bill. In Oregon state agencies were told to buy no new furniture or magazine subscriptions. In Virginia, prisoners now receive only two meals a day on weekends and holidays. Kansas is cutting printing costs by posting official documents on the internet. These are just examples of what’s happening.

Here’s a nutshell sum m ary of w hat the agency executives told us in response to a series of questions.

We asked them how the state budget crunch affected their operations and, if they were cut, by how much and what has been sacrificed. We asked managers to compare staffing to last year and three years ago, and do the same for workload. In that regard, we asked them to compare the mix of micrographics and electronic imaging work over those periods. Finally, we asked whether more work is being sent to outside suppliers than before.

In this atm osphere how are state m icrofilm/imaging departm ents faring?

To get a representative and statistically valid idea of what’s happening, The Green Sheet asked well-known managers of leading major microfilm/imaging operations in six key states how their activities have been affected. Perhaps surprisingly, based on responses received by TGS, the answer has to be, with some exceptions, “surprisingly well” While microfilm/imaging operations definitely have been adversely affected and one manager reported a bleak situation, the overall picture isn’t as bad as might have been expected. The operations are doing far better than many other state activities. Evidently the importance of records management and preservation is accepted in government at these levels.

There are definite cutbacks in spending, with discretionary items like travel and training hardest hit. For example, in many states travel to conferences and conventions is allowed only if an attendee is a presenter at a conference, such as the Midwest States Micrographics Conference, or to a training session only if that training is critical to an operation. In one situation maintenance and commodities have been cut back.

The manager there reported, “We were unable to sign maintenance agreements for our microfilm cameras, COM or CD equipment. We’re operating on a time/material basis. I’m not sure what we would do to get repairs if something major malfunctioned”.

But the cutbacks at microfilming/imaging operations pale in comparison to what other state activities have had to endure.

Workloads Department workloads are basically the same as a year ago, or even three years ago, though there has been a shift to more imaging and less microfilm. Staffs have not been decimated, though vacancies created by retirements (some of them early) are not generally being filled and, in most instances, use of part-time employees is being cut. Even the operation with the 3 bleakest situation did not report layoffs.

In situations where the microfilm/imaging department charges back to user agency clients, things are often said to

Anonym ity Please Most agency executives preferred anonym ity and we’re honouring that request, but here are some of the more interesting comments, most anonymous, but attributed where the agency head had no problems.

Milton Matzke, Micrographics Manager, Public Records Division, Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives, said his department hasn’t seen any direct cuts to its filming or imaging operations but added, “We are heavily dependent on agency-generated receipts (i.e. payments received from other agencies for the micrographics and imaging services we provide to them). When the other agencies’ funds are reduced, they need to make decisions as to how to allocate this lower level of available funds. Their ability to contract with us for these services could be affected and we could lose needed receipts.” Other state microfilm/imaging agencies who operate on the charge back system had similar comments.

Staff sizes basically remain the same, though there were three exceptions, two on opposite sides of the spectrum. One department has added two people (to 15 from 13) while one took a roughly 20% cut. In another situation the staffing total is the same as last year and three years ago but the ratio of full time employees to temporaries has changed, going in the opposite direction as most others. Now there are more temporaries and fewer full timers. The manager of this department noted, “The biggest challenge that we face is our ability to hire and retain staff. We have been under a hiring freeze for the last year and that has resulted in our increasing use of temporary staff. That, in turn, has increased the learning curve in the micrographics area to the point where we find ourselves constantly training new staff in our microfilming requirements”.

Even with generally unchanged staff sizes, workloads have either stayed the same or, more usually, increased over the past year. While micrographics still represents the bulk of work done, digital work - document scanning, creating CD-ROMs, doing film scanning and other image conversions - is on the rise.

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Microfilm still the Staple Virtually everyone reported an increase in scanning activities, sometimes at the expense of microfilming. They also said microfilm-related activities are still the prime function. John A. Friend, Microfilm Lab Supervisor, Wisconsin Flistorical Society, reported, “Up until very recently we only did micrographics work. Donation from the private sector to our History Foundation has resulted (in the addition) of a microfilm scanner and two new microfilm cameras. We are just beginning to develop film scanning projects (but) microfilming will continue to be the backbone of our operation for the foreseeable future”.

Typical was Milton Matzke’s response. “We provide microfilming in both 16mm and 35mm, processing, diazo and silver duplication, document preparation, scanning from paper or film (any format), indexing, quality control of filmed or scanned images, CD-ROM creation, and distribution of the final products to any regional offices (the clients) designate..... On a monthly basis, scanning is about 20°/o of the total imaging work we do.... (but) the percentage of electronic imaging has increased over the last year by about 50°/o and over the last three years by about 10 times what we used to do”.

None o f the respondents said they were currently outsourcing any of their filming or scanning operations.

That’s understandable considering the pressures to keep outlays down. In the case of these respondents, the answer has been to increase internal productivity and that is what is keeping U.S. state micrographics/imaging operations going in very tough times.

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By Batsheva Lerner, Export Et Sales Manager for MicroVue Products

The term “paperless office” sounds very sleek and modern, straight out of a futuristic, science fiction movie.

Unfortunately, as most of us know all too well, this term seems deemed, (or should I say doomed?) to remain in the future. Beyond the mail and faxes with which some correspondents continue to bombard us, plus the hard copies printed for “safe” keeping, we have become all too aware that we cannot depend only on the information stored in digital form in our computers.

When was the last time your computer crashed and hours and days may have been spent to find some missing file or files?

Or perhaps they were never retrieved? And when was the last time you did a backup to your hard disk to prevent losing this crucial information when your computer crashes? And how about that last time you tried to retrieve this crucial information only to discover that your wonderful, new operating system has turned your information to gibberish?

Maybe you were lucky and the only damage was that all your apostrophes turned into little squares? Or maybe you stored it on those old floppy disks and no longer have the hardware to load it? Or maybe the CD got scratched?.

Government offices that must store their information for long periods of time - perhaps a person’s lifetime, perhaps longer,

have begun to realise that they cannot depend purely on the computer and digital media for storage of their information.

More and more they are returning or deciding to remain with micrographics with the realisation that this is the only proven method for long-term storage, without expensive migration costs every 5-10 years.

MicroVue Products has witnessed this revival over the past few years - with over 600 new microfilm readers installed during this period at the US Social Security Administration, a few hundred readers at the Spanish Social Security (INSS), additional large installations at the Department of Land Affairs in South Africa, Czech Ministry of Interior and other government offices the world over such as Panama, Korea, Poland, Austria, etc., etc. Any responsible office, and let us hope that our governments are responsible, must make sure that the information they have today will also be available tomorrow. Microfilm remains the only true tried and tested format for long-term storage. For retrieval of this information, turn to MicroVue Products for its range of 16mm and 35mm microfilm readers.

Contact: Batsheva Lemer, MicroVue Products Tel: + 972 4 6062171 Fax: + 972-4-6062168 e-mail: info@microvue.co.il website: www.microvue.co.il

Case Studies from L

17ml T O

ITESOFT boosts Leisure Time ITESOFT UK has supplied Luminar Leisure with its new document management solution, ITESOFT.FreeMind for Invoices, in a drive to speed up the processing of over 230,000 supplier invoices a year.

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“The capacity of the software to work in tandem with our Windows 2000 system, and the level of expertise demonstrated by the company’s engineers, naturally led us to choose the ITESOFT.FreeMind for Invoices solution.”

ITESOFT.FreeMind Jawaby Oil Services

Luminar Leisure, the UK’s number one late night event management company, has over 10,000 employees with an annual turnover of over £390 million. With the high level of business at venues throughout the UK, supplier invoices for services and goods number over 4,500 per week.

ITESOFT is also to supply its new software suite, ITESOFT.FreeMind, to Jawaby Oil Services, to capture and extract data from 4 million in-coming paper and electronic documents for secure and fast retrieval of business critical information.

ITESOFT.FreeMind captures information and is then able to identify, index and recognise it automatically. It then stores the data in an accessible electronic format that can be fed into the businesses workflow environment.

London based Jawaby Oil Services provides a purchasing I service within the UK to the Libyan Oil industry.

ITESOFT.FreeMind will automate and control the processing and retrieval of data from all incoming documents and tender bids which, once processed, will be fed into the business workflow, creating a fully integrated knowledge base.

Specifically designed for the automatic processing of supplier invoices, ITESOFT.FreeMind for Invoices, part of the ITESOFT.FreeMind suite, successfully combines template and adaptive data capture technologies to achieve 100°/o first-time processing of unstructured documents.

IT Manager at Luminar Leisure, Rob Trippett said, “The previous semi-automatic system had constant problems with fixed invoice templates in both qualify of data capture and control. ITESOFT.FreeMind gets round these problems by intelligent template generation.

“Our procurement department receives approximately 900 new requisitions per month. 73°/o are received as paper, totalling some 1,350 pages per month,” said Les Burnell, head of the IT department at Jawaby Oil Services. “We required an electronic business processing solution that offered secure storage.”

The procurement department processes some 150,000 different line items of materials worth over £250 million each year.

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aspirins to wellheads, food to gas compressors, schoolbooks to steam boilers.

“Documentation required for Libya is especially important, in particular the certificate of origin, tariff code requirements and the tagging of line items for customs identification. The new data capture software from ITESOFT will enable us to gather this and other critical data more effectively and improve information presentation,” added Burnell.

Colin Dean, Managing Director of ITESOFT UK comments, “Paper is still the raw material of business. In any industry, the capture of paper is one of the most time consuming processes.

Only by achieving 100% validation can organisations bypass expensive human intervention of routine invoice checking and realise productivity gains.”

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Bmic to ensure Contemporary British Music is here to stay The British Music Information Centre (Bmic) is set to speed up the capture of its collection of music scores with ITESOFT’s automatic data capture software solution, providing a free-ofcharge, globally accessible resource of contemporary British works.

Bmic’s new online digital collection documenting over 30,000 works by some 2600 British composers will constitute the largest on-line resource for contemporary British music.

Starting with works written in 1900, it includes unpublished or out-of-print scores that are difficult, or impossible, to find elsewhere.

Daniel Goren, information manager at Bmic said, “We required a data capture solution that incorporated an extremely high level of quality and flexibility that easily integrated with our existing content management database and would minimise operating error. ITESOFT was the only data capture solution provider to offer a completely tailor made solution that met all of these specifications.

“Crucially, ITESOFT’s capture solution is able to deal with each document in an individual way. Each score can vary in size, layout and condition. The new software is able to capture all the required data, even from old and delicate scores.”

The quality of all documents is guaranteed by the qualitycontrol interface. ITESOFT’s data capture solution will also simultaneously generate scores as viewable PDF (Portable Document Format) files for web delivery and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) files as archive copy for storage.

Colin Dean, ITESOFT UK MD added, “Bmic required a specific solution that was capable of capturing a large amount of data from varied types of scores while ensuring quality and in some cases actually cleaning up the information for the website. We try to offer each customer a bespoke system that is able to adapt Jo the organisation, in any sector of activity.”

The Bmic website will form part of the government-run gateway to educational resources on the Internet, the umbrella site for 150 lottery funded projects.

“With the new access to digitised materials, we expect to see a large rise in users, providing unprecedented coverage of the music of British composers,” concluded Goren, “Over the coming year we will be adding audio samples and composer information to the site.”

Contact Colin Dean, Telephone: +44 (0)1252 741500

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Kendata eases membership renewal process for Geneological Society The Geological Society has significantly reduced the workload associated with its annual membership renewal process by using scannable forms, designed and printed by Walsall-based Kendata Print Services, the specialist supplier of forms for automated data-entry systems.

financial information on the other side.

The new membership renewal form made an immediate impact, as Judi Lakin explained: “Kendata’s design ideas were quite simple, but, somehow, as soon as they got involved, the form ju st looked so much more professional.

1 am sure this has a very positive effect and helps Fellows to feel they are part of an organisation that does things in a business-like way.”

Each November, the Geological Society is faced with the job of sending out membership renewal invoices to every one of its 9000-plus Fellows. Until 2000, this work was carried out internally by the Society’s accounts department, but, according to Fellowship Services Manager, Judi Lakin, the membership was growing steadily and it was simply becoming too large a task.

“It used to tie up printers in the accounts office for far too long,” she said, “and, to be honest, the design of the renewal invoices themselves left a lot to be desired.”

At that point, the Society decided to call in some outside help. Although several suppliers were evaluated, Kendata had the edge as it had already produced a detailed questionnaire for the Society some time before and had developed a good understanding of the organisation’s needs.

Working closely with the Society, Kendata’s design team came up with a 2-colour, double-sided A4 form, with a letter and brief questionnaire on one side and a barcode and all the

At the printing stage, each form is automatically personalised

by Kendata using membership information supplied by the Society. When Fellows return the completed forms, the Society’s accounts staff scan the membership-number barcode, key in any changes made on the form, and record the payment details.

In order to save time on the processing of the forms, the Society can make use of Kendata’s bureau service for scanning in the replies to short questionnaires if they wish.

Kendata performs quality assurance checks on the data, in accordance with the requirements of BS6001, and then sends the results back in a format compatible with the Geological Society database.

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“All in all, we are very satisfied with the service Kendata has given us,” concluded Judi Lakin. “As well as offering expertise in form design, printing and scanning, they are quite amenable whenever we have to make last-minute alterations, which inevitably does happen from time to time.”

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Leading UK Microfilm Business acquires new company and a new name

A Nuneaton-based company that is the UK’s leading distributor of microfdm consumables, has acquired a specialist software business as part of its five-year expansion plan.

The Microfilm Shop has purchased Optical Image Technology UK (as reported in the August issue of The Green Sheet) and with it the exclusive rights to distribute specialised document management software products in the UK. “The purchase of OIT represents a strategic step in our plans to take our company into the digital arena so that we can offer our customers an unrivalled selection of products. At the same time it is now appropriate to give our company a new name - Genus,” said managing director, Paul Negus.

Genus is now poised to enter new market sectors. The acquisition of OIT provides an opportunity to sell products into the insurance, legal and accountancy sectors, as well as NHS trusts.

Open days to explain the acquisition and the company’s expansion plans are to be held for customers and potential customers at Hinckley Golf Club on Tuesday October 7 and Wednesday October 8.

“We have a distinguished history in the microfilm business that goes back 25 years,” said Paul. “Under the new name of Genus we shall be able to retain and develop our leadership in the marketplace, as well as continue to provide the core supplies and services that have traditionally been associated with The Microfilm Shop.

“We have set up operations in France, Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Germany and are supplying our products to more than 60 countries worldwide. We shall shortly be announcing new products for our traditional markets, as well penetrating new business sectors with our latest software products.”

Paul added that staff from OIT had already transferred to Nuneaton from OIT’s Milton Keynes office.

The new Genus name is the brand identity which will promote the services of the whole group. Other divisions are The Microfilm Shop, manufacturer and distributor of microfilm consumables and equipment; The Microfilm Factory, manufacturer of microfilm jackets and other microfilmrelated plastic and polyester products; Graphic Press, commercial printer and stationer; OIT, distributor and integrator of document and records management software; and the Genus division that encompasses services for hybrid document management systems.

Genus has also established a new website, www.genusit.com, where visitors can learn more about the new company and its expanded range of products and services.

Contact: Genus, Hammond Close, Nuneaton, Warwickshire CVU 6RY UK. Tel: 024 7638 3998 Fax: 024 7638 2319 Email: sales@microfilm.com Web Site: www.microfilm.com

ACS expands ACS, a major U.S. provider of business process and information technology outsourcing solutions, opened a new 65,000 square foot facility in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, roughly an hour from Philadelphia. The facility will provide a variety of services, including imaging, to government and commercial clients throughout the Northeastern United States. Initially it will employ 100 people with projections of an additional 50+ within the coming year.

AIIM Forum AIIM International’s 2003 Service Company Executive Forum will be held in San Francisco, Nov. 6-8. The two and a half day event combines technical, marketing and business sessions with a small exposition and several social events. It draws service company executives from around the world, though naturally most are from the United States.

For information go to www.aiim.org/scef Free white paper Available from AIIM is a free white paper on “The Impact of regulations on email archiving requirements”, prepared by Osterman Research which did a study showing that about 60°/o of critical business information needed by a typical email user is stored within the email system.

Contact: www.aiim.org AIM makes new acquisition AIM Document Management, in collaboration with John Barabin, a Private investor, has acquired American International Micrographics. The latter is a microfilm and scanning service company based in Cinnaminson New Jersey. Oak Tree Resources, which acts as a “marriage broker” in the buying and selling of service firms, assisted in the transaction.

For more information contact www.oaktreeresources.com 7 5th anniversary o f Recordak Eastman Kodak this year is celebrating the 75th anniversary of Recordak, the first commercial bank microfilming system.

In 1928, a subsidiary of Kodak (named Recordak) launched the bank cheque filming system which was invented by George McCarthy. In today’s world, Kodak Service ft Support was named a worldwide authorised service provider for scanners to Imaging Business Machines (IBML). The company has systems installed in more than 20 countries and Kodak will support all of them.

PAGE 16

$ 150 million debt offering Iron Mountain announced a $150 million debt offering. The company intends to use the net proceeds to redeem all or a portion of 8-1/8% notes of one of its subsidiaries which are due 2008. The decline of interest rates made the offering attractive to Iron Mountain.

“Brand” new LASON image LASON launched a new branding and marketing campaign to increase its position in the business process outsourcing industry. Rather than continuing to offer just discrete individual services, LASON is now dedicating its efforts to re-engineering business processes for customers and offering completely integrated solutions. A new company slogan is “Outsource to the Secure Source”. A key element in LASON’s

new effort is the launch of a fully integrated advertising, sales and marketing and public relations campaign targeting specific industries. LASON hired WOWappeal, a professional branding company in Atlanta, Georgia to assist in developing these strategies. WOWappeal previously worked with LASON in launching document DNA, an internet service, in the fall of 2002. As a result of the initial promotional campaign with WOWappeal, LASON says it saw more than 66% increase in its document DNA customer base.

ARMA ISG Meeting Announcem ent We have just been notified that there will be no individual ISG meetings at ARMA, only a Sector meeting. This means that the microfilm services group will meet with 4 other groups. And the meeting time has been cut from 2 hours to one hour.

The new meeting announcement is as follows: The ISG Contracting Sector made up of the following ISGs: CONSULTANTS - 04, GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS - 40, MICROFILM SERVICES - 47, RECORDS STORAGE / DESTRUCTION FACILITIES - 39 and EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTORS - 07 would like to announce their Annual meeting will take place at ARMA 2003 in Boston.

Sunday, October 19th (8:30 AM to Noon) at The Marriott Copley Place, Salon I. Agenda: 1. 8:30 - 9:30 AM Microfilm Services ISG: Overview of the film based vendors at the ARMA Show and a brief description of the current State of the Micrographics Industry by Bob Zagami of ImageMax. 2. 9:30 - 10:30 AM Storage 8t Destruction ISG: PRISM Task Force Activities by Lee Pendergraft, CRM. 3. 10:30 - 11:00 Break 4. 11:00 - 12 Noon Contracting Group Business and Planning.

For information go to www.arma.org Image One acquires Shell Office Systems’ Orlando branch TAMPA, Florida. August 11, 2003 - Joseph C. Lennon, owner of Image One Corporation announced on the 11th August the acquisition of Shell Office Systems’ Orlando branch office. The purchase became effective retroactively as of August 1, 2003.

The company will be led by the Image One management team, and will immediately assume the support of all existing Shell Office Systems’ Orlando customers.

Contact: Robert Atherton, Image One Corporation Director o f Sales and Marketing. Telephone: 813-888-8288 or e-mail: roberta@image-1.com VisionShape Acquired by Peripheral Dynamics VisionShape, a design of page scanners, software and software toolkits for production document imaging, has been acquired by Peripheral Dynamics, Inc.(PDI), a manufacturer of image scanners and readers, especially for the lottery and gaming markets and other industrial applications. PD1 is a member of the Indel group of more than 70 companies worldwide that offer a wide range of technologically sophisticated products and services.

VisionShape, headquartered in California, will continue as a distinct business unit with no changes planned at its HQ operation. However, it will transfer manufacturer of its high-speed scanners to PDI in Pennsylvania.

RSC adds scanning and boosts microfilm Reproduction Support Center is a Californian based service bureau specialising in document reproduction. The documents are received in many formats and reproduced according to custom er specifications. Output formats include paper, microfilm and digital images stored on a wide variety of media. RSC’s customers include local governments, legal firms, medical institutions, educational facilities, and litigation support companies.

With such a broad customer base RSC was faced with the challenge of satisfying its clients’ changing preferences. The service firm found some customers were increasingly asking RSC to scan documents into digital format while others wanted to increase their microfilm applications. RSC had to make a decision: should it acquire scanning equipment and enhance existing services and/or should it buy more cameras to accommodate the growing microfilm business?

After evaluating equipment from a variety of manufacturers, RSC decided it could have the best of both worlds. A Kodak Electronic Microimager allowed them to accommodate growing requests for scanning services and still enhance their service levels for customers requesting microfilm.

“We decided that connecting a 3510 Scanner to a Document Archive Writer could serve both microfilm and scanning applications,” said Chuck Scott, VP-operations. “The combination of the technologies allows us to produce digital

images for some customers and scan documents to produce perfect microfilm for others”.

According to Scott, the integrated solution has proven to be fast, accurate, space-efficient and cost-effective. “Customers who have seen the microfilm output love the high quality they receive. And we’re delighted because the combination of equipment has not only increased customer satisfaction but also boosted our productivity”. He said RSC is now able to accomplish on an eight-hour shift what used to take two shifts to complete. “Our productivity has increased 30-35%.

Our scanning quality has seen an even larger boost and our customers are very happy with the results”.

Contact: Chuck Scott, RCS on +323 722 6630 In stock at GB Products Ink rollers for scanners and all cheque processing equipment are now in stock and available for immediate delivery.

Canon, NCR, Kodak and Bell ft Howell ink rollers at reduced prices and no minimum order. All ather brands available and include GB’s finest quality guarantee.

GB Products International Corp. is the largest manufacturer of Endorser Dies for scanners and all cheque processing equipment.

Contact: Laura Divina, GB Products on + 925 825-3040 or Email: Idivina@gbproductsintl. com

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ZEUTSCHEL Zeutschel GmbH • Heerweg 2 • 72070 Tubingen Tel.: (0 70 71) 97 06-0 • Fax: (0 70 71) 97 06 44 intoazeutschei.de w w w .z e u ts c h e l.d e

ROUND <V A B O U T EFI appoints new European M anaging Director to drive com pany’s growth agenda Electronics For Imaging, a world leader in imaging solutions for network printing, has announced the appointment of Paul Cripps to the key role of Managing Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Based at EFl’s European headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Paul will lead the company’s continued drive for growth and development in the EMEA regions. EFI also named Jeffrey Brooks as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) responsible for EFl’s global marketing strategy and implementation.

“I am delighted to be joining EFI at such an exciting time of its development,” said Paul Cripps, EFI M anaging Director, EMEA.“Over the years, EFI has demonstrated a strong commitment to expanding its European operations and as the com pany’s focus on providing hardware and software solutions develops, it is my aim to build on this strength and utilise my experience to ensure EFl’s position as a leading solutions provider throughout EMEA.” Paul joins EFI from iKON Offices Solutions, one of the world’s leading office services providers, where he was most recently the Corporate Director of Sales Operations for its Professional Services division. In this role, Paul’s division focused on delivering software and hardware solutions and consulting services to improve office efficiency. Over his 14year tenure, Paul rose through IKON Sales and Marketing management positions, working with Fortune 1000 and other large institutions. Paul attended the University of Southern California.

EFl’s new CMO, Jeffrey Brooks, is based at the company’s global headquarters in Foster City, California USA. Jeff was previously CMO of Brocade Corporation, a leader in storage networking and security based in the US. Prior to this, he was the CMO at Marconi, pic, a global telecommunications and information technology group; Senior Vice President in marketing at Nortel Networks, and SVP of Global Marketing at Bay networks. Earlier, Jeff held senior management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and Sony Corporation of America. Jeff holds a B.S. degree from Rochester Institute of Technology and MBA from Temple University.

Commenting on the appointments, Guy Gecht, Chief Executive Officer of EFI said, “I am delighted to welcome Jeff Brooks and Paul Cripps to the EFI family. They bring both breadth of sales and marketing experience and depth of industry expertise to help us achieve our ambitious goals.

Paul’s deep industry expertise and relentless customer focus will provide our European offices with the strategic direction

needed to further grow our worldwide business. Jeffs extensive global marketing experience will help our customers gain the insight they need to fully benefit from EFl’s innovative, market leading solutions.”

Contact: Adrian Cutcliffe, Senior Marketing Manager Europe, Electronics For Imaging. Tel: +44 (0)20 8476 7676 Email: adrian.cutcliffe@efi .com Captiva named as one of San Diego’s fastest growing Technology Companies Captiva Software Corporation, a leading provider of input management solutions, today announced that it has been named one of the fastest growing technology companies in the San Diego area by Deloitte ft Touche LLP, one the nation’s largest professional services firms. Their findings included Captiva in the 2003 San Diego “Technology Fast 50” for its 104°/o increase in revenues over the five-year period from 1998 through 2002. This year’s inclusion on the prestigious annual ranking marks Captiva’s third appearance in the last five years.

“We’re honoured to again be recognised by Deloitte ft Touche as one of the fastest growing companies in San Diego,” said Reynolds C. Bish, President ft CEO of Captiva Software.

“We attribute our outstanding revenue growth over the last few years to the efforts of our employees and the dedication of our customers.”

To qualify for the “Technology Fast 50”, companies must have had operating revenues of at least $50,000 in 1998 and $1,000,000 in 2002, be a public or private company headquartered in North America and be a “technology company” defined as owning proprietary technology that contributes a significant portion of the company’s operating revenues and/or devoting a significant portion of revenues to the research and development of technology.

“To succeed during prosperous times is one thing; to succeed in adversity is much more challenging, and that’s exactly w hat this year’s Technology Fast 50 winners have accomplished,” said Helen Adams, Technology Partner at Deloitte £t Touche. “We applaud Captiva for its tremendous accomplishments during recent economically challenging times and for being one of the elite “Fast 50” companies in San Diego."

Winners of the 20 regional “Technology Fast 50” programmes in the United States and Canada are automatically entered in the Deloitte ft Touche “Technology Fast 500” programme, which ranks North America’s top 500 fastest growing technology companies. For more information on the Deloitte ft Touche “Fast 50” and “Fast 500" programmes, visit www.fast500.com.

scanner, eliminating black borders; and new multi-feed detection characteristics that signal the operator at both the start and end of a job.

The duplex i80 Scanner, with a recommended retail list price of $2,700, captures documents, photos and colour graphics at speeds up to 35 pages per minute (ppm) and 20 images per m inute (ipm) at 150 dpi. Deskew and autocrop features, which are enabled

by Kodak Capture Software Version 6.1, work with both light and dark backgrounds for exceptional scans and improved OCR read rates. The i80 Scanner’s document feeder handles up to 75 sheets at a time in a wide range of sizes and weights, which significantly reduces the need for labourintensive pre-sorting. The scanner also features a built-in flatbed for scanning odd sized documents.

FLS Support, the UK’s leading supplier of technical support solutions to the TT and office equipment market sectors, has appointed Kevin James as National Field Service Manager.

He will be responsible for managing a team of 50 engineers situated throughout the UK and Northern Ireland providing on-site technical support to users of faxes, printers, copiers and scanners.

New features announced earlier this summer for Kodak i800 Series Scanners, the highest speed capture devices in the company’s portfolio, will also be supported by Kodak Capture Software Version 6.1. These features include iThresholding, an on-board solution for bitonal applications that reduces the need for presorting, rescans and post-image processing by automatically adjusting for highlighting, low contrast and light-weight paper and “Colour on the Fly,” which utilises a toggle patch to switch from black and white to colour (or vice versa). The new software also supports multiple table downloads, including colour tables created using the brightness and contrast features made possible by iThresholding; aggressive cropping as performed by the

For more information on Kodak Scanners and software, visit www.kodak.com/go/docimaging.

FLS announces new Field Service Manager

Kevin James has over 20 years experience of providing technical support in this market sector. He has held a number of management positions since joining the company in 1993 as field service engineer including South Western Regional Manager and Service M anager - IT division. Prior to joining FLS, he worked for TPM Ltd, Elite Office Equipment Ltd and MOE (Midlands Office Equipment).

According to Chris Paveley, Managing Director of FLS: “Kevin’s proven technical expertise and management skills will play an important role in helping FLS to achieve its ongoing strategy for growth.”

Contact: FLS Ltd, FLS House, 3 Radford Way, Billericay, Essex CM12 ODX UK. Tel: 0870 400 2000

PAGE 19

Kodak announces availability of New i80 Scanner The new departmental i80 Scanner from Eastman Kodak Company’s Commercial Imaging Group is now shipping to customers worldwide. To support the new scanner, as well as enhancements recently announced for the company’s high­ speed production scanners, the i800 Series Scanners, Kodak has also announced the availability of Kodak Capture Software Version 6.1.

IMR provides UK boost for Alchemy Information Management Research (IMR) Inc. of Denver, Colorado, the developers of the market-leading Alchemy product suite for document management, imaging and archiving, have created IMR U.K. to act as sole distributor to the valued added re-seller (VAR) and service bureau channels in the UK and Ireland. The business will be operated under license by MBS (Micro-Business Solutions Limited), already a long-time distributor for Alchemy products in the UK. Key objectives of this announcement are to greatly expand the VAR community for Alchemy and to aggressively launch new products in the UK. The news was announced by IMR’s President and CEO Steven Grandchamp at a special Alchemy VAR and service bureau conference at Heathrow Airport on 10th July. He stated that ’’the move is intended to increase IMR’s marketshare in the UK by streamlining channel operations and more efficiently launching new products.

IMR UK will also provide local order fulfillment to ensure fast delivery of products and local technical support.”

In parallel to the business announcement, Mr. Grandchamp also outlined IMR’s strategic vision to expand further into the records management and compliance solutions markets with several new products to be released in the UK in the coming months. Coming this autumn are new versions of Alchemy that include automated email archiving, audit tracking, enhanced document control, and document routing.

Alchemy is already deployed at over 10,000 organisations globally, producing spectacular efficiency advantages in business functions such as custom er service, invoice management, human resource management and logistics. An impressive list of blue-chip customers in the UK includes British Home Stores, Courtaulds, HMV, ICI, KLM Airlines and a number of public sector organisations within the NHS, Fire Service and Local Government Authorities.

I I M

R s

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT RESEARCH Founded in 1992, IMR is a privately held corporation based in Englewood, Colorado. IMR is the developer of Alchemy, tfye popular document management software that people love to use. Alchemy is trusted by thousands of organisations around the world to manage documents for regulatory compliance and records retention, and to provide business processes with fast access to archived documents.

Organisations interested in becoming value added re-sellers or service bureau users should contact Paul Smith at IMR UK, either by telephone at 01767 651004 or via e-mail at paul@imruk.com

PAGE 20

DIGITISE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DOCUMENTS Again this year, Zeutschel GmbH, specialist in high-end scanning systems, will be present, together with Crowley Micrographics, Inc., exclusive distributor for Zeutschel in North America, at ARMA International’s Annual Conference and Expo. This specialised fair will take place in Boston from October 19th to 22nd and will offer many possibilities to tie new connections.

The Zeutschel-copier system is easy to operate, network compatible and, able to copy 22 single pages per minute, is also faster than a standard copier machine. Most suitable for public libraries: the book copier is available with an integrated prepaid card system. This system supports nonreturnable copier/value cards, as normally used in university libraries, as well as re-chargeable account cards.

At one of the most important exhibitions for information and document management in North America, the scanner specialist from Tubingen proves the high efficiency of its digital document storage systems for the most types of documents and format sizes. Among others on display, there will be the high performance colour scanner Omniscan 10000, the book copier system Bookcopy 5000TT as well as the brand new microfilm scanner Omniscan 1000 HS.

The new microfilmscanner Omniscan 1000 HS will also be shown at the international fair. This brand new roll film scanner from Zeutschel digitises both 16 and 35 mm roll film - 35 mm roll film at the so far unsurpassed speed of 60 images per minute in 300 dpi, 256 grey scales. The scanned roll films can be archived as a complete film, then later on may be integrated in the customer’s DMS system.

The Omniscan 10000 is most suitable to digitise books, newspapers and large size documents. The newly developed image processing tools and the “Orthoscan” - function (book curve correction) give a perfect image reproduction, whilst the special lighting system, without UV-radiation, ensures the careful digitisation of the document in a very fast time - the Omniscan 10000 needs less than 3 seconds for a DIN A2docum ent (C-size) in colour. When integrated into a document management system, digital archiving of most different kinds of documents is easily and quickly achieved.

The book copier system, Bookcopy OS 5000TT, copies books and bound documents also in an efficient and caring way: The “face-up” copier system allows the book to be placed on the book-cradle with the corresponding book page “face-up”.

Contact: Jorg Vogler (CEO), Zeutschel GmbH, Heerweg 2, 72070 Tubingen Tel. + 49 (0)7071/9706-0 Fajr + 49 (0)7071/9706-44 E-mail: info@zeutsehel.de Web Site: www.zeutschel.de or visit Crowley Micrographics at ARMA 2003, from October 19th to 22nd 2003 in Boston, booth 1012

READERS

READERS

There have been several replies to the original article "The move from microfilm ” in Issue 18 by David Aspinall. Here then is the Author’s response to those comments.

Dear Editor, First of all, my apologies for not responding last month but an antipodean adventure for me and my wife to see our first grand child took precedence. Mother and child continue to flourish despite our advice!

My thanks to those two stalwarts of the industry - Gerald Baker and John Negus - for their well-reasoned responses to my article.

John, your last comment was spot on; my tongue was very much in my cheek when I wrote the last three paragraphs. I had hoped to elicit some response from the manufacturers but ..alas.

Perhaps my only comment is that the wind did not change while my tongue was in my cheek but the wind was ’’the wind of change”!

Adopting a slightly more pragmatic viewpoint, it is probably only in the last five to eight years that computing technology and the associated networks have had the power to effectively handle imaging. Early microfilm autoloader systems were not matched by the capabilities of the computer systems of the day and it is only now, with the advent of records management solutions, that electronic systems are beginning to recognise that other forms of media, other than electronic, actually exist.

Of course, microfilm is an archive media and is best suited to the long term storage of information with low retrieval, rather than the storage of current active information, and there are many examples of organisations moving to digital technologies for the wrong applications and counting the cost afterwards. But I think it is worth examining my correlation with tapes silos a bit further. When introduced (over twenty five years ago now), they could only be afforded by organisations such as major financial institutions and were the size of a large caravan. By automating tape changes, organisations were able to introduce lights out, overnight computer operations and, hence, considerably reduce their operating costs. The first uses were for back up and restore of batch orientated systems, but systems were subsequently developed for holding copes of reports online and the automated tape libraries were then also used as nearline storage for older reports. Today, tape library systems are available in desk top format starting at about 1 terabyte capacity which gives approximately 20 million images at 50,000 bytes per image.

These are fine for interim storage but not so hot if we have to migrate information, and I agree that microfilm is the best media for longer term storage. With the growing emphasis on corporate governance, organisations - starting with the big boys - are looking for more effective storage solutions. They are being forced to introduce corporate file plans which encompass information in all media and formats. Most of these organisations have probably already had their corporate fingers burnt by the b-leading edge of technology (couldn’t resist that •mix of metaphors!). Their problem is one of information logistics and, I’m sorry John, but I haven’t seen any logistics companies trying to get by with Land Rovers. They are unlikely to require instant access to archive material but they will require low-cost access and in terms of today’s business paradigm, that means reducing labour costs. That can be achieved by either introducing automation or exporting jobs to lower cost economies. We have probably all read about the transfer of labour intensive activities (including call centres) to offshore locations but, somehow, I can’t see major organisations moving bulk materials which could

READERS

be the subject of regulatory enquiries.

PAGE 21

READERS

So this brings me back to the automation of microfilm processes. The production of microfilm output from computer systems has been a fast and automated process for decades. With the electronic generation of documents, the increase in scanning of paper documents and the improved capabilities of computer output to microfilm (COM) systems in handling images, selective output of records requiring long term storage is (and has been for some time) a viable records management storage methodology. Newer records management systems will also accept information from COM systems to enable efficient retrieval. The only missing link in the process is an improvement in that retrieval process.

I don’t expect there to be a huge demand from all and sundry for such systems, but it could well be worth some of the major manufacturers re-examining the viability of automated retrieval, carrying out some appropriate market research and seeing what can be begged, borrowed or stolen from the automated tape libraiy experience.

Perhaps, in another 10-20 years, low cost, secure, desk top film libraries complementing electronic document and records management systems (EDRM) will become common­ place in providing remote automated retrieval for archive requests!

David Aspinall, Datum Solutions Ltd. 01252 612805 daspinall@datum-solutions.co.uk

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T h e CSC G roup u n ites acq u isition s The CSC Group is pleased to announce the formation of The CSC Groups of Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, uniting for the first time under one common name the acquisitions of Image Management Technology, VuCom Data Services, ACUCOM, and MGI of Chicago.

The name change was necessary to complete the link of these companies to other CSC Group locations throughout the region including Indiana and New York.

The formation of The CSC Group of companies formalises in name what has been the focus and practice of CSC since the mergers began: The collective ability to provide complete end-to-end solutions based on results-driven customer need, backed by a proven track record of countless success stories. “It is a foundation that few organisations in the data and document management space can boast”, says Michael Bernard, Vice President of Business Development. “The combined force of our various business venues,

now joined under one name, creates the most comprehensive electronic imaging and microfilm service bureau in the Midwest offering the latest technologies to convert paper documents, electronic data and engineering drawings, as well as any type of film-based imaging.”

Since 1964 CSC has been at the forefront of combining document imaging technology with automated business solutions in healthcare and other industries - adding value through Capture, Conversion, and COLD solutions. “We recognise that information and people are an organisation’s most valuable assets”, said William Zimmerman, President/CEO of The CSC Group Holding Company. “Our solutions unify these two assets to help customers reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve customer service.” dperrdla@csc-groupinfo.com

n ex tS ca n p artners with R istech R istech to p ro vid e sa les, service a n d su p p o rt f o r n extScan rollfilm scanners Ristech Company, a distributor of document management solutions for Fortune 500 companies, today announced they will now be the official Canadian reseller for nextScan’s Phoenix™ and Eclipse™ microfilm scanners. Ristech has added the nextScan products to their offerings based on the superior speed, reliability and image qualify nextScan products offer the Canadian micrographics market. ”0ur customers need the Phoenix and Eclipse technology from nextScan. The innovation behind these scanners far surpasses current film scanner designs. We wanted to partner with nextScan as their reseller for Canada so we can offer the scanners that are fast becoming the leaders in the market. We constantly strive to provide our customers and prospective customers the most up-todate, reliable and best suited technology for their needs. The nextScan product line was a natural fit and a necessary addition to our suite of products,” said Robb Richardson, Director of Ristech. ”We spent a significant amount of time and effort selecting the best partner in Canada to provide sales and service for the nextScan scanners - one that was absolutely committed to offering only the best in scanning solutions. Ristech was the clear choice with their founder’s 40 plus years of experience in the

document management and micrographics markets and their philosophy of superior customer support. They consider their customers, business partners and suppliers of vital importance to their future,” said Steve Butterfield, President and CEO of nextScan.

Ristech will be selling, installing and supporting the full line of nextScan products to include the high performance Eclipse rollfilm scanner and the Phoenix retrofit - new film scanning technology designed to fit within the housing of older, unsupported SunRise® scanners. The Phoenix was designed to give new life to all models of the slower, outdated SunRise 16 and 35 mm microfilm scanners.

It will scan at 220 pages per minute and even scan grayscale and bitonal image at the same time without a reduction in speed. The faster Eclipse rollfilm system was designed for the most challenging of conversion projects, scanning 300 pages per minute, even in grayscale. With Adaptive Speed Control, Auto Thresholding and the latest in high performance camera technology, nextScan is giving demanding users the power to deliver complex work on time and under budget. Both the Phoenix and Eclipse were built around a robust single board architecture designed for reliability and supportabilify vs. the multiple boards used in other or competitive designs.

Quality, Speed, Reliability Get the superior performance you've always wanted in a rollfilm scanner instead of the technology you have been forced to accept!

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Scan 300 pages per m inute to get the ultim ate in production level rollfilm scanner performance w ith Eclipse, our n ext generation scanner.

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Create grayscale and bitonal images a t the same time w ithout a reduction o f output speed with nextScan products.

Come see nextScan in booth 202 atARMA 2003, Boston, Oct 19-22, 2003 - www.anna.org nextScan, Phoenix and Eclipse are trademarks of nextScan.

All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

nextScan The Next Generation in Film Scanning Technology 925-831-3141 . www.nextscan.com

Formed in 1995, Ristech was born from the Document Systems Division of 3M. The founders were charged with the task of introducing digital communication technologies to the 3M micrographic systems customer base. Since 1995 Ristech has grown to be a major supplier of production scanning and conversion technologies nationwide. Ristech’s customers include many fortune 100 companies as well as the major conversion service bureaus.

Ristech is a privately owned company headquartered in the Toronto region with a branch office in Calgary, Alberta.

Contact: Erin Dempsey, nextScan Tel: +1 (910) 864-2044 Email: erin@nextscan.com

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PAGE 23

Rates are £35 ($ 50 ) per insertion with a lim it of 25 words. Each additional 25 words or fraction are £35

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