TODAY-The Journal of Work Process - Nov/Dec 2006 - Snowbound Software - 1

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006 VOL. 29 NO. 6 ® The The Journal of Work Process
Improvement PRODUCT FOCUS Finding the Sweet Spot in Document Imaging Image
Quality and Its Effect on Productivity By Simon Wieczner he increasing need
for businesses to streamline workflows and manage document assets more
efficiently has pushed companies to digitally capture, view and store
corporate information. Decreased reliance on paper-based systems has
increased efficiency and reduced errors, and the use of automated systems
to scan, process and archive documents has improved productivity across
every industry to ultimately lower transaction and processing costs for
business and consumers. Image quality is an important but often overlooked
aspect of document imaging that holds the potential to boost productivity
and profitability. Establishing standards for optimum image quality in
document capture, viewing and archiving enables companies to find the
“sweet spot” of maximum performance with minimal complication
throughout the entire workflow. T working with high resolution images must
be balanced against the challenges they can present, including the
following: • Additional processing each time the document is accessed by
content recognition and management software • Image degradation over time
that can jeopardize regulatory compliance status if using lossy formats
such as JPEG • System bandwidth requirements for document transfer Data
capture needs can also be met by extracting text from documents that are
already in electronic i.e., Microsoft® Office Suite, PDF, or PCL formats
before converting to highly compressible, static image formats such as
TIFF or JPEG for viewing or archiving. The Big Picture on Document Viewing
Fundamentally, any activity after capture requiring interaction with a
document falls under viewing. Speed to access content is the critical
factor during the viewing stage of the workflow process. Implementing a
universal viewing application provides numerous opportunities for
organizations to increase productivity, including: • Providing user
access to multiple file types without having to open multiple
applications, saving time and system bandwidth • Retains documents in
original format with ‘read-only’ restriction • Decreasing
per-document processing time • Enabling Web-based viewing of all
document types across multiple departments, business units, or physical
locations Companies with document verification policies that require
visual confirmation of document content to verify accuracy or to
transcribe data from images to a database spend the bulk of their time on
document viewing. The ability to process documents through a front-end,
universal viewing application will raise productivity during this stage of
the document lifecycle by processing larger quantities of documents each
day. Viewing applications can also leverage document repositories and
enterprise content management systems for greater productivity.
Server-based viewing applications can improve productivity by: Examining
the Workflow Process – Document Capture As paper documents are converted
to electronic format, the most important consideration is accuracy. In the
case of data capture, where information extracted from documents will
trigger other actions, special care must be taken to ensure that detail
from the original document is legible to the recognition software such as
with remittance processing , so that images can be accurately reproduced
and meet legal and other compliance standards. Arthur Gehring, director of
marketing for document capture and forms processing software solutions
provider Datacap Inc., explains, “Document capture is the beginning of a
process that requires images to be repeatedly compressed, decompressed,
viewed, and sometimes edited or enhanced. It is crucial in the
capture-flow environment that these processes are very fast and reliable.
It is also important that when images are being transmitted, for example
in the case of remote capture applications, that they are effectively
compressed before transmission.” Accuracy is best achieved by creating
high resolution images. However, using color or print-quality images
significantly increases file size particularly if using lossless file
formats such as TIFF during document capture and at other points in the
workflow. The advantages of         

TODAY-The Journal of Work Process - Nov/Dec 2006 - Snowbound Software

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