When we shared a recent Mail Magazine article concerning scanning technology for the internal delivery of postal mail, several of our clients requested more information.  Managers are faced with three primary concerns: the potential of mail contamination disrupting their facilities, increases in mail volume (and the cost of delivering it) and decreases in labor resources.  The process of scanning postal mail – what Mail Magazine referred to as “Scan & Deliver” -- can address each of these issues in a way that is practical, efficient and cost effective.

The use of scanning equipment to process internal documents is not new.  It has been used by some organizations for many years in litigation management, regulatory areas, claims processing, collecting and processing client correspondence and even distributing images of securities by brokerage houses.  The use of scanning systems to process incoming postal mail has also had some success with several prominent companies.  Unlike those earlier systems, the current technology uses greatly improved scanning equipment (in both speed and quality) capable of processing thousands of documents while retaining excellent resolution.  The OCR software used to read and index documents has also been improved with advanced algorithms that have the ability to learn and correct themselves automatically. 

Another major technological improvement is the availability of larger, mass storage devices and their much lower cost.  In the earliest years of image scanning, clients needed to purchase an array of storage devices that were extremely expensive, slow, unreliable and had limited capacity.   Today, a single, inexpensive DVD can store nearly 125,000 pages! 

In addition, with the availability of networked workstations, virtually universal e-mail and good bandwidth for shared information, no new infrastructure investment is needed, even at the desktop where mail needs to be used.

A scan and deliver operation can make an immediate positive impact on an organization. A secure, digital mail distribution system, like that provided by MailSurity and distributed by Datamation Systems, has several advantages over conventional physical mail receipt and delivery

Security

Biological threats are a problem that may not be in front of us every day, but they simply will not go away.  The level of exposure and threat to any particular organization cannot be predicted.  The anthrax crises of 2007 targeted media, news and government agencies with collateral affects to postal agencies and the regions they serve.  The cost of business interruptions, delays in processing mail and employee anxiety reached billions of dollars in lost revenues, business interruption and clean-up costs.  Many organizations considered strategies to address the problem, including off-site processing centers, in-house screening, UV treatment and autoclaving technologies.  Each of these methods provided some level of protection but the only solution that completely protects a company is not exposing the facility to the physical mail at all. 

This is only practical an appropriate and affordable technology is used to give the organization access to the information contained in the mail.    

A company that uses scan and deliver technology, in an offsite or environmentally-isolated facility, will be able to receive incoming mail and open, scan and deliver it electronically using its existing e-mail system without ever exposing the facility or its people to a threat of harm.  The original items are indexed and kept in storage should the original documents be needed. 

 Cost Savings

The typical employee handles the same piece of paper three-to-four times, using traditional manual filing for physical documents and spending a significant amount of valuable time searching for information.  In a typical corporate mail operation, incoming mail is rough-sorted, fine-sorted, sometimes opened, researched and delivered.  The average handling of each document is only compounded once the mail is delivered and the recipient opens the piece, reviews its contents and files or re-routes the document.  If the information needs to be shared, copies are made, reviewed, delivered and stored. 

Companies processing 1,500 - 2,000 pieces of mail -- and using the MailSurity distribution system -- can realize a sufficient labor savings to achieve a return on their investment within seven months.  These savings are the direct result of reduced handling and elimination of the delivery of the physical item.  The mail is opened with high speed openers, scanned using an appropriate digital scanner and automatically delivered to the recipient whose name is picked up off the scanned envelope.  The “mail clerk” does not need to read the correspondence or make any decisions or pre-sorts, improving efficiency and reducing errors.  The mail center can be smaller and delivery times are virtually instant.

Another savings is realized when the document is transmitted to the recipient in a format which gives him/her the opportunity to read, store, forward, print or delete.   This reduces the number of physical documents that are stored and manually retrieved.  Forwarding is a significant value, creating instant access, whether in the next cubicle or in another country.

Efficiency

In the above section, we spoke about the improvements in mail distribution. Another aspect of the “scan and deliver” process is its implementation within a specific operational group. Several clients have expressed an interest in using the technology to deliver mail to remote branches and/or out-of-office personnel. Apparently, these types of operations require 24-36 hour delivery times as mail is manually processed locally and re-delivered to outside facilities. By electronically sending the documents, mail is available to the recipient the same morning it is received with secure transmissions and access to the original documents, if needed.
This is especially useful to telecommuters, traveling employees, employees temporarily on off-site assignments (such as consultant, techs or auditors), and expatriates. It greatly reduces re-mailing volume, saving on overnight deliveries and re-mailing delays.

This document addresses just a few reasons why “scan and deliver” technology will benefit many operations facing today’s difficult operational requirements. As clients provide us with more ideas on how they view this technology and find new reasons for implementing these systems, we will publish additional reports.

If you would like information on additional resources for this topic, feel free to drop me an e-mail or give us a call.

Dag Gonzalez.

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