ASL Group Transforms Document Processing with Solutions from Kodak Alaris

Customer Profile

ASL Group is one of the UK’s largest managed office services suppliers. The company has completed several acquisitions over the past ten years and today works with more than 7,500 customers nationwide, all served locally from one of nine office locations across the UK.

The Challenge: Outdated, Manual Systems Created Inefficiencies

In 2023, ASL acquired two managed print services (MPS) providers - Copyrite Digital Systems and Sharples Group. One of the challenges within the post-acquisition integration process was enabling seamless access to both companies’ customer contracts and lease agreements.

According to Faye Webster, Sales Order Processing Manager at ASL, customers were asking for copies of their contracts and the ASL sales team needed access to those customer records. “The biggest issue was that both organisations operated a paper-based system and the information we needed was randomly filed in about 30 large boxes, so getting the MPS contracts and lease agreements digitised and uploaded to our system quickly was key.”

In earlier acquisitions, ASL had used multifunction devices (MFDs) to scan the records, but this was a manual and time-intensive process. Documents had to be individually placed on the device, and if a single page was missed, the entire document had to be re-scanned and the digital files then had to be manually renamed and uploaded to the system.

“This process took ages, and by not putting a proper scan solution in place, we’re still catching up on a four-year-old project - some of the digital files have yet to be properly filed,” Faye said. “This time we wanted to do it the right way, which is why we asked Kodak Alaris to help.”

Solutions from Kodak Alaris

Kodak Alaris worked closely with Chief Commercial Officer, Simon Whapshott to design and configure a bespoke solution leveraging the KODAK i4850 Scanner and KODAK Info Input Solution, which is AI-enabled intelligent document processing (IDP) software.

“The technical support we received from the entire team was first class, from our initial conversation through to configuration and build,” Simon said. “The real value-add was the training they provided which enabled me to make any necessary tweaks or changes to the system as and when required.”

ASL had several requirements for this project. Specifically, the scanner had to be able to handle a huge variety of media – the documents ranged from standard A4 and A3 documents, record cards, multi-page carbon papers, right through to oversized lease agreements which were approximately one metre in length.

Simon explained that the most important thing was to ensure the solution made it easy for Faye’s team to quickly process these varied documents. “There’s a lot of devices that can scan a document, but for me, the most important question was how effectively can we scan something and automatically route it to where it needs to go? As a result, the conversation was centred around the capabilities of KODAK Info Input Solution.”

Intelligent Automation

“We talked a lot about the key features of Info Input Solution and how it can do classifications of different document types, intelligent OCR data extracting, etc,” Simon said. “We wanted to make the process as efficient for our users as possible. All that was required was for them to open the screen and hit scan—all the workflows were set up, there was no need for manual intervention. The information went straight into SharePoint automatically. At no point did they have to log in to SharePoint, because the workflow was set up to make sure files went into the right folder structure, every single time.”

Superior Media Handling

In addition to the software automation, the user experience with the KODAK i4850 Scanner was also a breeze for the ASL team. “We simply loaded a bundle of different paper weights and sizes into the scanner and it just powered through,” Faye said. “We digitised 120,000 images. One thing we really liked about the scanner is the metal detection feature, which prevents mis-feeds, paper jams, and loose staples and paper clips from scratching the scanner glass.”

“If the scanner detects a staple or a multi-feed, it shows you the last scanned image and you simply put the rest of the pages back in, rather than on an MFD, where you have to re-scan the whole document,” she added.

The Perfect Page image processing technology built into the KODAK i4850 Scanner is another feature that ASL particularly liked. With de-skew and auto rotate set up on the scanner, the document image quality is consistently superb, and because the image enhancement work is done directly on the scanner rather than the PC, the document throughput continues at full speed.

Improved Efficiency and Responsiveness

ASL’s sales order processing team is responsible for setting up all new customer contracts in the system. If a customer needs a copy of their agreement, this team is the first port of call. “Often, it’s an urgent request, they may have auditors in the office and don’t have a copy to deliver, so they need it quickly. Before we started this project with Kodak Alaris, if a call came in, we didn’t know where to start or even which box to look in,” Faye explained.

Now, when the team receives a request for a copy of a contract, they simply go to SharePoint, retrieve the file that was delivered via KODAK Info Input Solution, and then email it to either the customer or the salesperson in a matter of minutes.

“We had a backlog of requests that came in during the scanning process, and once we had finished, we were able to clear them up very quickly. Just the other day, it took me five minutes to respond to three queries from customers, without distracting me from the job I was actually doing,” Faye added.

Achieving Continual Productivity Gains

Looking ahead, ASL is planning to leverage more of the advanced features of KODAK Info Input Solution. For example, prior to engaging with Kodak Alaris, ASL conducted a manual data cleansing process that involved physically sorting and shredding files they no longer had to retain.

“We know that Info Input Solution could have automated that data cleansing for us. The software recognises date ranges to automatically determine whether to save that information in the workflow or, if out of range, place it in a separate folder for manual checking,” Simon said. “There are a lot of other advanced features that we didn’t utilise this time round, such as automatic classification. Info Input can determine whether a document is from Copyrite or Sharples, or whether it’s a lease, an email, or a service contract, much faster than an employee could do. The software also integrates with the latest handwriting recognition technologies, which run in both the cloud and on-premises, so that’s another feature we will utilise moving forward.

“The key thing is that Info Input Solution provides us with lots of flexibility,” he added. “We can choose to use pre-configured processes or we can use AI and data extraction. For this project we just wanted to get it done quickly, and I was able to set up the workflow and get us up and running the following morning. The software is simple to use—it was really easy for me to go in and make quick changes. The flexibility of the application is impressive.”

Fast ROI

For ASL, the ongoing cost savings have been substantial. “When you’re scanning and digitising files, it’s important to take into consideration how long you need to keep that information and the cost of actually storing it in the cloud,” Simon explained.

With scanners from Kodak Alaris, compression reduces the file size without lowering image quality. This in turn reduces the amount and cost of cloud storage. With many documents needing to be retained for seven years, this file compression delivers significant savings straightaway and over the life of the document.

“This project went so smoothly - with just one person, we managed to complete the project in just two weeks, and it was twice the size of the still unfinished project we started four years ago. I think the key takeaways are firstly we are never doing it manually again, and two, we will never use an MFD for high volume bulk scanning again!” Faye concluded.