December 4, 2014 — Kodak Alaris announces today that Solutions 4 Data, a supported business run by Nottinghamshire County Council, has upgraded its scanning equipment and Kofax capture software in a project delivered by Data Capture Solutions, a Neopost company. The investment enhances productivity of the bureau and has resulted in an immediate 20% improvement in scanning throughput. It also paves the way for exciting future developments for the organisation such as the possible provision of electronic mailroom services to the council.
New Kodak i3450 and i4200 series low volume production scanners have been installed, along with the latest release of Kofax Capture software - version 10. Furthermore, a new Kofax module has been added, PDF+, which enables basic OCR to be applied to PDFs. As part of the project, Solutions 4 Data has also migrated away from legacy Microsoft Windows XP and installed Windows 7 as its standard operating system.
Solutions 4 Data is a supported business and employs eight staff with the majority of the team being disabled. The supported members are part of the Work Choice programme, a government employment scheme - a partnership between The Department of Work & Pensions and The Shaw Trust – which enables disabled people to enter the world of work. Each person is helped throughout with training tailored to their individual needs with the aim of retaining long-term employment.
Ivan Rockley, Solutions 4 Data’s manager, explains, “We provide and operate Nottinghamshire County Council’s in-house scanning solution. This involves delivering a range of daily functions such as invoice capture and processing, HR document scanning, adult and social care financial paperwork digitisation, as well as services to third party organisations in the local area.”
The demands placed on the Solutions 4 Data team to meet tight service level agreements are considerable. For example, the council receives between 600 and 1,000 invoices each morning which need to be scanned and released by 3pm. OCR software is used to extract invoice data which is then imported into the council’s finance system for accounts payable staff to then match against purchase orders so that the process of payment can start.
Solutions 4 Data last purchased scanners in 2007 when two Kodak i280 and one i1440 were installed. Rockley says, “In a bureau environment, scanners have a lifetime and it was time to refresh what we had after seven years of reliable service.”
The new i3450 and i4200 low volume production scanners come with the latest Xenon LED bulbs – for crystal clear image quality – with throughput speeds of 90 pages per minute (ppm) and 100 ppm respectively. This has increased bureau processing performance by 20% as result.
Able to process paper sizes up to A3, the rotary i3450 scanner also comes with built-in A4 flatbed with book edge feature, perfect for processing bound documents, books or pamphlets. The higher performance i4200 scanner comes with a 500-page front loading feeder with Sure Stack technology which stacks documents properly on the exit tray so that paper doesn’t get mixed up or jams occur.
Attentive project management and support by DCS
After a competitive tender, Data Capture Solutions was selected in November 2013 as Solutions 4 Data’s implementation provider given it is a Kofax platinum partner and part of the Neopost group of companies who Nottinghamshire County Council have a good relationship with for existing mailroom services. Rockley says, “The driver is to streamline our business relationships so as to work with a few specialist partners only.”
Data Capture Solutions has delivered IT project management services, handled the upgrade from Kofax Capture 9 to 10, supported the Kodak scanner selection and installation, implemented new production and disaster recovery servers, and is delivering ongoing service and support for Solutions 4 Data’s Kofax environment. Kodak Alaris itself is providing service and support on its own equipment.
Nick Scarff, Managing Director, Data Capture Solutions, says, “Businesses like Solutions 4 Data present a different implementation challenge when new IT upgrades occur. The roll out needs to be handled carefully so that you bring people along with you, everyone understands and can cope with the subtle changes between the software versions and the new hardware. We’ve had a consultant on site to ensure that this process has run smoothly and been successful.”
The future is digital mail room services
Looking to the future, Solutions 4 Data is exploring implementing digital mailroom technology for the council to open, scan and share all incoming mail electronically around its County Hall site and several other buildings within Nottinghamshire. Currently 30-40 sacks of post are received each week which is a considerable overhead for the council to manage from a time and cost perspective.
Neil Murphy, Kodak Alaris’ UK sales manager says, “It is superb to see people from Nottinghamshire – with a disability - employed in such a core function within the council. Clearly the work that The Shaw Trust and Solutions 4 Data do to help individuals match their work aspirations and abilities - given the job roles required – is marvelous. And we play a part in this too as our scanner equipment is intuitive and easy to use.”
