Is your office still overwhelmed with boxes of documents that you don’t have room to store? Does your workflow suffer from manual, outdated processes? Our 21st century office Backfile Scanning solution converts your paper documents into digital forms. The process is thorough, involving strict quality control and security measures to ensure that your documents are preserved. Here is a brief rundown of InStream’s Backfile Scanning process.
Document Pick-Up
The conversion process begins with the safe and secure pick-up of your records by our logistics team. Documents are then transported to InStream’s facilities. All InStream employees have executed confidentiality agreements to assure you of our strong commitment to document security.
Records Room
Upon arrival at InStream, your records are safely unloaded and tagged with your name, the job name, a shop order number, and other unique identification parameters. These tags allow us to track the progress of your project through every stage of the conversion process.
Then, your project is entered into the InStream conversion schedule and the records are stored safely in our Records Room. This room was custom designed and built by InStream with concrete ceilings and floors, steel doors and a zonal sprinkler system to protect your records.
Document Preparation
When it’s time, your records are brought to our preparation stations. Preparation – one of the most crucial functions in the conversion process – involves InStream’s experienced team of preparation specialists removing folders, staples, paperclips, fasteners and folds. Barcode targets are inserted as indexing aids. Notes are taped down and small pieces of paper are affixed to standard size sheets. Record pages are oriented to face appropriate directions, sequenced or purged, separated, marked if poor quality, and aligned to the scanner feed edge. Our specialists remove any all scanning hindrances, and prepare the documents for easy feeding into our state-of-the-art high speed scanner.
Scanning
Once prepared, your boxes of records are transferred to the scanning area. InStream has invested in the newest and most effective scanning technology available, providing our customers with crystal clear images. Our equipment can scan at the rate of 200 pages per minute. Further, our scanning equipment can scan the front and back of a record simultaneously, then automatically delete blank pages. It can use barcode-reading capability and optical character recognition (OCR) forms processing, to automatically index records as they are scanned, eliminating any human intervention. Any additional de-skewing, cropping and contrast improvement is then performed.
During the scanning process, our scanner operators view images one-by-one on a monitor to prevent any processing errors from occurring. The scanners use ultrasonic detection to check for double-feeds that occur when more than one sheet of paper enters the machine at the same time. When double-feeds do occur, the scanner stops and alerts the scanner operator to correct this error.
Digital Quality Control
The digital images produced by our high-speed scanning equipment are then checked for accuracy in a separate, specialized quality control process. This process involves our quality control specialists deploying unique software designed specifically for inspecting large numbers of images in an effective and efficient manner. Folded corners, poor quality documents, file separation, Post-it® Notes covering information and cut-offs are detected. The specialist then flags any questionable documents, locates the paper originals in the box records, compares them to the scanned image, and re-scans them if necessary.
Digital Post-Processing
Next, a number of subsequent digital processes may be needed, including manually indexing from the images, database manipulation, mass rotation of images, and file formatting. Once these processes are complete, files and images can be entered into your workflow management system.
To learn more about Backfile Scanning, CONTACT INSTREAM today.
