For years now, the pursuit of the "paperless office" has been a goal of many organizations. The result is a growing need for companies to implement content management solutions by using scanners.
While some might automatically gravitate toward production scanning solutions, companies have shown increasing interest in distributed scanning implementations.
So, what is distributed scanning?
Distributed scanning is a scanning technique that employs lower-volume scanners in multiple locations throughout an organization. This strategy brings the scanning process closer to the point where documents enter the work process. Distributed scanning is also suitable for smaller companies with lower scanning volumes, and it’s more financially accessible than production scanning, due to its lower implementation costs.
Companies are also using distributed scanning to comply with regulations. Distributed scanners allow documents to be accessible to electronic workflows much sooner, making it easier to route, process, and archive documents. This reduces the cost and risk of transporting documents to a centralized location.
Scanner manufacturers will continue to create features that make scanning easier and more secure. Solutions include "digital watermarking" to provide an audit trail and ensure document authenticity in the scanning process, time and date stamping to enable legal compliance data integrity, and intellectual asset protection.
This is an exciting time in the document imaging market, as more and more companies embrace document management solutions and install document scanners.
