General Introduction

Imaging is : simply making an electronic version of a piece of paper and storing it on a computer.

Generally we use a device called a “scanner” to take a picture of the document and convert it into a format that the computer can use.

Imaging has several benefits like:

• Faster retrieval of documents
• Reduction of filing space
• Wider access to documents

Three primary parts to imaging are:

Scanning — this is taking a physical piece of paper and running it through a scanner.

Indexing — this is the process of assigning “keys” to the document.

Retrieving — once a document has been stored in the system, you need to be able to get it back and view it. Usually done by searching.

Now coming to our main topic which is,

“Document Imaging”

” It is an information technology category for systems capable of replicating documents commonly used in business.”

Document Imaging Systems can take many forms including microfilm, on demand printers, facsimile machines, copiers, multifunction printers, document scanners, Computer Output Microfilm (COM) and archive writers.

How it works ?

1. Capture: Images of paper documents using scanners or multifunction printers. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is often used, whether integrated into the hardware or as stand-alone software, in order to convert digital images into machine readable text.

2. Indexing: may be as simple as keeping track of unique document identifiers; but often it takes a more complex form, providing classification through the documents’ metadata or even through word indexes extracted from the documents’ contents.

3. Storage: Store electronic documents. Storage of the documents often includes management of those same documents; where they are stored, for how long, migration of the documents from one storage media to another (hierarchical storage management) and eventual document destruction.

4. Retrieval: Retrieve the electronic documents from the storage. Although the notion of retrieving a particular document is simple, retrieval in the electronic context can be quite complex and powerful.

5. Distribution: A published document for distribution has to be in a format that can not be easily altered. As a common practice in law regulated industries, an original master copy of the document is usually never used for distribution other than archiving. If a document is to be distributed electronically in a regulatory environment, then the equipment tasking the job has to be quality endorsed AND validated.

6. Security: Document security is vital in many document management applications. Compliance requirements for certain documents can be quite complex depending on the type of documents. For instance the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements dictate that medical documents have certain security requirements. Some document management systems have a rights management module that allows an administrator to give access to documents based on type to only certain people or groups of people.

Organizational Benefits:

• Improve document access and operational efficiency throughout.
• Reduce the opportunity for error
• Speed transactions
• Heighten security while minimizing security maintenance
• ‘Go Green’ – Reduce paper /Remove paper from organizational environment to reduce storage and paper-handling costs