Is Digital Imaging Right for My Organization?
It’s a question we hear often these days, and answering these questions will help your organization make the right decision about document imaging.
The truth is it that there are huge benefits to converting your documents, but every company has different imaging needs.
Making the right decision about imaging needs to start by understanding what you want to get out of the process and how it relates to your current records management environment.
We’ve put together a series of questions to help you do just that. These questions are meant to start you thinking about what your specific imaging requirements are and how you can best use the technology to get the maximum records management benefits.
Your Imaging Objectives
- Do you currently use imaging in any capacity in your environment? You need to
understand your current context before starting any new projects. - What are the top reasons you are considering an imaging project? For example,
do you want: - Storage efficiency (space/management/archiving/backup)
- Improved information retrieval and access
- Streamlined workflow
- Enhanced collaboration
- Improved tracking capabilities
- Compliance support
- Augment our disaster recovery/business continuity plan
- Improved customer service
- Other
Your Current Filing Environment
- How large is your filing system? What is your organization’s total current number of:
- Active records
- Onsite
- Offsite
- Inactive records
- Onsite
- Offsite
- Does your file storage include multiple locations? Where are they?
- What is the total footprint (in sq ft) your organization has dedicated to file storage? Estimate the cost associated with that for:
- Active files
- Historical files
- If you use offsite storage, estimate the total percentage of total collections retrieved:
- Daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Quarterly
Digital Imaging
- What is the current number of employees involved in performing filing and retrieving tasks?
- Estimate the time in hours per day those personnel spend retrieving, filing, refilling and searching for files.
- Within your current file organization model, rank the effectiveness of your file retrieval:
- We are always able to find files (95-100% within reasonable time frame)
- We are usually able to find files (75-95%)
- We can find files most of the time (50-75%)
- Frequently we can’t locate files (35-50%)
- File retrieval is a major issue for us (0-35%)
- How are you currently tracking your files?
- Honor System
- Manual Sign In/Out
- Software/Barcode System
- RFID tags
- How much are you currently spending annually on filing supplies like folders and labels?
After you have reviewed the questions and considered your answers, contact us to learn more about how digital imaging can help you simplify information access, storage and retrieval, reduce costs and provide your enterprise with greater flexibility.