While many organizations are moving toward a paperless workplace, education lags so far behind that a recent Workmobile survey gave it the dubious distinction of relying more heavily on paper than any other sector. There are significant hurdles in going digital, but the positives can far outweigh the negatives.
Under Pressure: The Case of the Ascension Parish School Board
Under pressure to find a new way to manage its rapidly expanding records collection, the Ascension Parish School Board looked for high-quality, user-friendly scanners that would fit nicely with their existing document management system. It would have been simple had they only wanted to process paper, but there was also a need to handle multi-channel digital content, such as emails, social media, and marketing collateral.
The Board eventually went with three Fujitsu fi-Series scanners integrated with PaperStream IP, Fujitsu’s TWAIN driver that provides high-quality images even from low-quality originals. Powerful image clean-up functions drastically improve the image quality of poor-quality documents. The intelligent multi-feed feature ignores false multi-feed errors triggered by pages with intentionally attached sticky notes, taped-on receipts, or other items.
The fi-Series has many attractive qualities, but for Fujitsu Sales Engineer Eric Fuchs, the scanners’ most compelling feature is their reliable Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). “The paper feed capability results in highly reliable batch scanning even when scanning a wide variety of paper types and sizes,” explains Fuchs, “and the Paper Protection feature protects documents from damage when scanned using the ADF.”
High-speed batch scanning is an important criterion for any organization, especially one like the Ascension Parish School Board that needs to digitize a century’s worth of records. Integrating the scanners into the Board’s software infrastructure ensured a seamless end-user experience, and exceeded expected savings.
Jake Ragusa, Technology Director for the Ascension Parish School Board, credits the Fujitsu fi-Series scanners with eliminating the need for a $2 million dollar expansion planned to deal with space issues. By scanning decades of historical records and millions of student tests, the Fujitsu solution freed up a significant amount of floor space, and reduced the required number of filing cabinets.
“Ascension is benefiting in other ways as well,” says Ragusa. “Employee enrolment used to be a paper-intensive process, but now it’s all digital. By either reducing or eliminating printing costs, we’re expecting annual savings of between $30,000 and $70,000. We also reduced operating costs by eliminating a full-time position that was dedicated to handling HR paperwork.”
As organizations struggle to stay afloat in a rapidly rising sea of data, IT teams are tasked with finding solutions that will help them stay current and save money. For teachers and other education professionals, there’s an obvious attraction in speedy, efficient scanners with a minimal footprint, trusted solutions with a proven track record have a special appeal. The Ascension Parish School Board found everything they were looking for in the Fujitsu fi-Series, which in pedagogical terms deserves top marks.
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