A brief overview of the advantages of scanning

There are many advantages to scanning your information and as the speed and efficiency of scanning has improved so dramatically in recent years, the cost implication is far less of an issue.

Below are a few advantages to scanning, whatever the format is that you wish to scan (documents, drawings, microfilms etc).

Space Saving - As space in offices is becoming more and more expensive and valuable, many companies will calculate the actual cost of storage as well as the potential earning power if the space was available.

Data Backup - Disaster recovery, cost justification of losing critical information, whether the threat is fire, water, loss, or general degradation.

Degradation of Quality - Information is constantly degrading, through constant use and general ageing.  Documents, drawings and micro-formats become torn, faded and possibly brittle.  Scanning the information will capture the image and the scan will not degrade.

Accessibility, Time Saving - Make information available to people at their desks.  Remove the need to have staff wandering around looking for documents.  Scanned information can be made available over your network so that the information can be searched, viewed and printed in a fraction of the time.

The best thing is you wont have to re-file anything! Which also removes the possibility of miss-filing a piece of information.

Distribution - Information can be easily distributed, not just internally but externally via email etc, saving time, effort and postage costs.

Information Availability, Instant Access, Shifts - Information is available instantly making decision making processes faster, easier and more accurate.  Also companies working in shifts, traditionally have restricted access to required information, for example "the drawing office shuts at 5:30pm", "you need to speak to Fred in the morning." Scanned information can be made available 24 hours a day for employees.

Recovering Lost Information - During the scanning process you will be amazed at the number of documents, drawings or microfilms that you thought were lost that reappear from a simple miss-filing error.