The Next Generation of Smart Copiers has arrived!

The next generation of smart MFP's has arrived.  Back in June of 2009 and I wrote a blog titled "I Want My...I Want My.....Smart MFP.  Just a few years ago we were ecstatic that Smart Copiers were now capable of saving businesses countless hours of time for scanning document.  The statement I hear of lot of this year is "do more for less".

The Hot features a few years ago was scan2ocr (will scan a paper based document and drop in back into a word doc), searchable .pdf (will scan a paper based document and turn it into a searchable .pdf), scan2MS365 and MS Sharepoint (via UDOCX) and the standard features for scan2email and scan2folder.

Document Management Software

Today's Smart Copiers/MFP can now hold the keys to kingdom for productivity in today's modern office.  Smart Copiers can now scan2 document management archival systems, many of your document management software providers are now developing connectors for the Copier/MFP.  Basically this means that you'll be able to scan documents to nested folders directly to your document management system, and it doesn't stop there with some document management connectors that are designed for the likes of Sharp and Toshiba you'll be able to access that document from the Copier/MFP and the print the document from the Copier/MFP.  If you're looking for Document Management Software check out Doculex and Intellinetics.

Scan2Cloud

Scan2box, Scan2googledrive, Scan2dropbox are just a few of the really awesome cloud solutions that are available now from different manufacturers.  

Apps

In the near future we're going to see the potential for hundreds of apps that can be run from the MFP, thus the potential to improve business process with MFPs will be enormous.  Some little know apps are available right now for your ipad, iphone and ipod.  Ricoh Innovations has a couple of apps that allow you to use your smart phone as a scanner and then also run OCR of that document. Yeah, the technology is in it's infancy but I can't wait for some of this technology to mature.

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Ricoh MP6002, 7502, 9002 series "Scanner Reveal"

It seems about every 18 months Ricoh will refresh a series of multifunctional copier systems.  The latest refresh of the MP6001/7001/8001/9001 completes the entire line change to the new "istyle" series. 

The new Ricoh MP6002 (60 page per minute device), the MP7502 (75 page per minute device) and the MP9002 (90 page per minute device) will be the new models moving forward. The new MP 7502 will be the replacement for the MP6001 and MP7001. There will be six different models in all, MP6002/MP7502/MP9002 will not come from the factory with scan and print.  The MP6002SP/MP7502SP/MP9002SP will all come from the factory with color scan, network scan and black network print.

Scanning:

The speeds are awesome!  When scanning at 300 dpi with the single pass dual scan document feeder you'll be able to scan black at 88 ipm for single sided and 176 ipm for double sided originals.  Color scanning at 300dpi will run at 88 ipm for single sided and 120 ipm for double sided originals.  Thus if you are using document management programs like Doculex or Intellenetics you'll be able to breeze through those documents in seconds!

Scan2folder, Scan2email, Scan2ftp, Scan2url are all standard features and you'll be able to scan from 100dpi to 600dpi. Let's say you have ECM (Enterprise Content Management) software then you'll be able to take advantage of the Ricoh's  1200DPI TWAIN scan driver. 

But!  What I like best is that the new Ricoh MP6002/7502/9002 is that you can add a browser unit (the browser unit is an option and the unit allows the MFP to connect to the Internet)!  Thus if you're a Microsoft Sharepoint or MS365 user you'll be able to scan directly Sharepoint & MS 365 with the UDOCX Cloud solution.  With UDOCX there's no need to install software on the server, no maintenance, it's a true access & go solution! 

There's a few other items I like also, even if you don't have the browser unit, you'll be able to use two really cool FREE cloud storage solutions.  One is dropbox where you can get a free 2GB service, dropbox sets up as a simple scan2folder on your PC or notebook, you'll then set a path from the MFP to your folder. That's it!  Anything you scan will then be sync'd with the folder on your pc/notebook and replicated in on the Dropbox Cloud.  The other service is OfficeDrop, they'll offer you a free 5GB solution, sets up similar to dropbox, however with OfficeDrop you'll be able to label your files.  With the labeling feature you'll then be able to search those files.

Output formats for scanning on the Ricoh can be single and multi page  page TIFF, PDF, JPEG, high compression pdf, encrypt pdf, and PDF/A. If you're not familiar with PDF/A is a file format and also an ISO standard for long term archival of scanned pages.

Ricoh has also added as a standard feature a nifty scan2usb and scan2sdcard.  Users will be able to scan to a usb drive or sd card, along with that users will also be able to print from these devices.  I was able to test this on a Ricoh MPC4502 and not only can you print the files but you can also view the files from the USB drive or SD card right on the awesome 8.5 inch color display.

I'll be you thought I was done right?  Nope, there's one other noteworthy feature and that's JBIG2 compression support. In a nutshell JBIG2 compression for scanned black images will enhance compression and allow companies to make better use of their document storage solutions.  FYI, for you those of you that are dealers, I highly recommend this leasing company, truly a pleasure to do business with LCA.

Stay tuned for next week when I'll go over all of the cool new print and fax features!

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Copier Dealerships Use of Tablet Technology Saves the Day!

Rick Backus is a genuine genius when it comes to implementing time saving solutions for Copier & Managed Print Dealers.  We're also proud to have Rick as a member and sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel forums, many times Rick has stepped up and offered a solution when most of thought there was not one.  This blog from Rick is a great example of how Rick's knowledge and expertise can help your company improve it's business processes.

Support revenue using mobile devices to capture signatures and data from the field

One of my clients was recently looking to refresh their field service technician's hardware and was considering whether they might be able to roll out tablets rather than upgrade the existing laptops.

Essentially the techs only needed storage for technical and part manuals, Internet access and email for communication. Tablets are certainly capable of fulfilling these requirements and are considerably less expensive which is always a powerful motivator.

During this same time period another dilemma was confronting the service department. They were losing a significant amount of revenue from chargeable, time and material calls where the customer was disputing the invoice and service could not produce a signed copy of the service call report to substantiate their invoice to the customer. It seems the existing procedure for processing the call reports no tracking ability to insure the techs a) Actually filled out and returned a signed copy of the report and b) once it was returned that it was properly filed and retrievable.

Many months ago I had setup a SharePoint site for them for a sales related project but at the time we also created a document library to scan date-batched service call reports to for archiving. You know, eliminate the paper and all... Well this process fell by the wayside and the department was losing revenue. A new solution was desperately needed.

Electronic forms would foot the bill but since they were using SharePoint Foundation they did not have access to InfoPath forms. After some research and testing on our in-house SharePoint Enterprise instance we came up with a solution to the problem. With a new mail-enabled, document library in the service department's sub-site we installed a new application to create electronic PDF forms. Using the original pdf file from the paper version as an underlay we inserted all the necessary data fields in the form including mapping specific fields to document library columns as metadata. The parts sales prices and final totals were setup to automatically calculate as well.

After some testing and training we rolled the solution out to the techs. It was a tremendous success. They have nearly 100% compliance, the completed forms are emailed back to the SharePoint document library and indexed automatically. Using views and/or filtering we can identify the chargeable reports, compare form count to tech closed calls as a cross check and we have all the customers emails for marketing purposes. The customers are impressed by the use of technology including using their finger to sign the forms which are emailed to them immediately. It was a huge win all the way around.

This technology opened up a whole variety of other opportunities with this client. The next step is to tackle the delivery and acceptance forms.

If this is something you think your organization could benefit from contact me here.

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Introduction to Document Management with the Cloud

Hooray!, another Guest Blogger!  This weeks guest Blogger is Constanze from Fenestrae, Constanze is in charge or marketing for UDOCX.  When is comes to an MFP Cloud solution for
I was reading an interesting article here on the mfp solutions blog about “document management” and how it is defined differently depending on the technical background of the individual referring to it.

I have found the following definition on the web:

“Document management is the process of handling documents in such a way that information can be created, shared, organized and stored efficiently and appropriately. For many businesses, the focus of document management is on the organization and storage of documents. They want to be able to store documents in an organized and secure way that still allows documents to be found easily.” (http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/management/g/documentmgt.htm)
In my opinion you must expand the definition of “Document Management” to include the words “electronic” and “digitized”.

Document management should be the process of handling ALL kinds of documents in such a way that information can be created, shared, organized and stored efficiently, appropriately and electronically. Organizations should be able to store electronic documents in an organized and secure way that allows digitized documents to be found easily.

Thus, organizations must implement document management systems (like SharePoint) while also employing technology to digitize physical documents accurately and efficiently.

General advantages of document management systems:

Reduce storage through digital archiving

No lost files

Faster, structured and easy retrieval and search

Compliancy and security

Structured input (scan)and output (print)

Improved cash flow (business critical documents)

We designed UDOCX to be a fast, structured and SIMPLE way to get paper documents from any multifunctional printer/scanner or copier, enrich them with optical character recognition and metadata, and accurately store them into SharePoint (or SharePoint Online) for further processing, workflow, or archiving.

I will concentrate more on the advantages/user cases of SharePoint during the next weeks. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask me constanzek@fenestrae.com

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Daily Document Management Industry Notes from Around the World! 2/23/2012

OSAM Document Solutions, Inc. was again awarded the prestigious Platinum and Diamond honors from Hyland Software for their expertise and client integration of the OnBase enterprise content management (ECM) solution. The Platinum award honors OSAM's ...

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LIBERTY, SC, Feb 23, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- KeyMark Inc., an award-winning document management solution provider, has once again received the Diamond support award from Hyland Software Inc. Hyland Software is the developer of the OnBase(R) enterprise ...
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Mr. Boris' expertise also encompasses discovery tools, including repositories, legal software, virtual deal rooms and complex document management systems. Mr. Boris attended the University of Massachusetts Boston and DePaul University in Chicago (CPE) ...
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Treeno Software, Inc. recently introduced its fourthgeneration Enterprise Document Management (EDM) system. Since 2002, Treeno Software has established its expertise in this $45B business application market with deployments in a variety of industries ...
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By Joe Shepley (@joeshepley) Feb 23, 2012 For those of you keeping score at home, I'm in the middle of a series on how to build and deploy successful SharePoint document management applications, with the goal of migrating end-users off of the most ...
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Essentially this is a web developer's content and document management system with integration to external enterprise document repositories. Advanced customization functions for programmers are offered through the Liferay Developer Studio product and ...
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This Week in Toshiba "TWIT Notes"

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places

- Toshiba announced a new product called “Wipe for Toshiba Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) models”.
o Ability for sensitive user data to be securely erased when a system is powered-down or when drive is removed from system
o Can be used to securely erase data prior to returning a leased system
o Toshiba hopes to sell these HDDs to MFP and printer manufacturers

- Toshiba announced a new agreement with Uranium One Inc. of Canada to secure long-term uranium purchase rights.
- Toshiba announced it will lay off 60 people in September from its Consumer Products division due to declining sales.

- Toshiba recent held its LEAD (lead, engage, act, deliver) Conference for its dealer in Irvine, CA. Details:
o to promote its managed print services program to its dealers
o no hardware shown
o covered training for sales, service and consulting
o consultants from Strategy Development (Tom Callinan) provided content
o claims that only 5% of all pages in U.S. are under an MPS program
o Toshiba only has 7% of the A3 MFP market in the U.S.
o claims to have 80,000 devices under MPS management currently
o on display was solution software from PREO, Capella, Drivve, Fasoo & Pharos

- Toshiba now offers a Microsoft SharePoint Connector for its MFPs. Customers must order for each MFP, a $500 connector and a $750 enabler for eBRIDGE Open Platform.

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