Paperless Office Solution

A “paperless office solution” is the implementation of the concepts of electronic document management to partially or totally remove the need for storage of paper documents or hard copy on shelves, in drawers, or in file cabinets in your home or business office.  Until the technological advances of the last ten years computer processors were too slow, computer hard drive storage was inadequate, the imaging of the documents using document scanners was too slow, and the resolution of cameras in the scanners was not sufficient to permit reading of small text font.  A paperless office was but a dream.

Thankfully, in the last ten years major advances have been made in computer hardware and software and now this dream is a reality.  Companies like Canon, Kodak, Visioneer, and Panasonic have been successful in developing scanners which can reproduce paper documents quickly and with incredible resolution so advanced that even tiny  text can be easily read.  Not only is the quality present but the scanners can take these pictures of the documents quickly and forward them to a computer for processing.  Furthermore, these scanners have become faster and better in quality while their prices have dropped drastically. 

A large metal scanner which could image at the rate of 40 pages per minute, weighed 50 to 60 pounds, and cost over $20,000 ten years ago has now been replaced by a small unit weighing  less than 20 pounds, with speeds of 60 pages per minute, at a cost of one-tenth of the old unit.  Also, scanner technology has progressed to permit hundreds of pages to be processed without direct supervision and without risk of missed pages.

Advances in scanning technology have been accompanied by the incredible improvement in computer processors enabling images to be flashed upon a monitor almost instantaneously after being taken by a scanner.  These computers need not be any larger than a laptop with a USB2 connection and cable commonly available on most computers.  Whether laptop or desktop such computers are available for less than $1000.00.

Lastly, technological advancements in digital storage memory and in the software to organize these images has accompanied scanner and computer improvements.  Portable disc drives that can hold millions and millions of documents now are so small that several can fit inside a shoebox.  Their cost is now less than $500.00.  Database software to hold these pages and the document management software to index and retrieve the documents are now within everyone’s budget.  This is why we now have an inexpensive paperless office solution for even a home office.

Document management is the classification and organization of records or other documents in a manner which will permit their retention and efficient retrieval when the information they contain is necessary in the operation of our home or business.  When life was simple a document management system might be as rudimentary as labeled shoeboxes where we kept certain receipts for home expenses.  Before the introduction of the PC computer in the early ’80s, businesses kept their records in manila folders in file cabinets with elaborate tabs, tickler systems, and entire departments devoted to keeping the records, distributing them by hand, and retrieving them when they were no longer needed.  It might surprise you to learn that many businesses in which we place a high degree of trust and confidence still manage their documents in that same manner.  You might look at the records of your lawyer or even your physician to see if they continue to operate in that manner.

The inefficiency and expense of such a system, not to mention the environmental impact  of continuing to use “hard copy” paper documents, has resulted in the development of systems using computer science to reproduce our records, classify them, store them for instant retrieval, and send them around the World in an instant when necessary.  Some refer to this as “electronic document management” however computerized organization of documents and records has become so related to systems of record and document retention that “electronic document management” has become synonymous with “document management”.  It is the digital computerized records and documents, and their classification, uses, methods, and tools to implement the systems which will hold the future and mark the progress in document management.