Paper Escape transform their BPO with Kodak Alaris

Customer profile

Paper Escape provides document scanning, physical storage and secure shredding services to public and private sector organisations nationwide. The company is ISO accredited, GDPR compliant, and a member of the British Security Industry Association (BSIA).

Paper Escape operates out of a custom-built 15,000 sq. ft facility in the heart of the Peak District in Derbyshire and has invested heavily to ensure best practice in security. The building is monitored by HD CCTV, benefits from a modern fire protection and detection system, and its IT infrastructure meets the highest standards of IT security and data compliance. Additionally, areas of the building used to store confidential information can only be accessed via ID card and biometric authentication, the company also undergoes regular audits to ensure ongoing compliance with stringent data security standards and regulations.

Challenge

Established in 2007, Paper Escape enjoyed a period of rapid growth which saw them quickly relocate to bigger premises, before investing in a brand new custom-built facility in 2017.

“When we started offering document scanning services, the decision-making process around hardware investment was based purely on cost,” explained Director Adrian Hill. “We opted to run a fleet of low cost models and they did the job well for a while.”

Historically, back-scanning projects involved digitising standard A4 paper documents. “However, as the business grew, we needed to process different types and sizes of documents, volumes increased exponentially, and with age, the fleet of scanners became less reliable, so we recognised that they were no longer fit for purpose and it was time for change,” he added.

The company made the decision to refresh its fleet, invest in new high-end models and replace legacy devices as and when they reached end of life. “The key drivers behind this rolling investment were a need to improve quality of the captured images, maximise reliability and robustness, and importantly, to increase throughput without adding to our headcount,” Adrian said.

The solution

Over the past two years, Paper Escape phased out its legacy scanners and invested in twelve KODAK i4250 and KODAK i4650 Scanners.

KODAK i4000 Series Scanners deliver fast (up to 160 pages per minute) throughput, feature a 500-sheet input elevator for continuous document feeding and a straight through paper path for feeding a wide range of materials of varying thickness such as cardboard, file folders and extra-long documents.

Scanners from Kodak Alaris include a whole raft of features that enhance and simplify the operator’s experience. These include Smart Touch technology that enables users to configure up to twenty different functions to fit their specific scanning needs and quickly perform common scanning tasks with one-touch simplicity; Perfect Page image processing technology delivers crisp, clear images even with challenging originals; and Intelligent Document Protection which monitors the condition of paper being scanned and listens for the sound of crumpling, preventing document damage by stopping the scanner automatically prior to jams.

More recently, with a requirement to further ramp up production capability, the company decided to investigate investing in a high-end production scanner. “We’ve been really impressed with the scanners from Kodak Alaris and so we set up a trial of the KODAK i5850 floor standing production scanner which offers super-fast throughput of 420 images per minute,” Adrian explained.

Benefits

Following a month-long trial of the KODAK i5850 Scanner, Paper Escape confirmed the purchase.

Adrian continued: “Our experience with the i4000 Series Scanners has been really positive. We knew scanners from Kodak Alaris are robust and reliable; they just work and it’s really easy to replace the consumables, so there’s minimal downtime. The trial with the i5850 Scanner quickly showcased the value-add of this high-end production model, making the investment decision an easy one.

“But more than that, trialling the i5850 Scanner enabled us to completely review and overhaul our internal processes. A combination of the faster throughput and reliability helped us to streamline our operations and become more efficient. We also built in an additional layer of assurance – so in essence, we’re not only able to process documents much faster but we have also added more customer value in terms of enhanced quality of output.”

The scanners from Kodak Alaris continuously run at rated speeds and seamlessly handle many different paper types, in fact, according to Adrian, the productivity gains have been significant and the return on investment fast.

“On an average day, with the old scanner model we would typically process six boxes (12,000 pages). In comparison, the i5850 Scanner can power through 20 boxes (40,000 pages) in the same time. That’s almost 3.5x more throughput.

“What’s more, we’ve been able to do that without increasing staff overhead, the majority of documents we process are A4 format, so after the prep is done, we can feed a batch into the scanner and the operator simply oversees it.”

Paper Escape initially decided to stick with its current capture software which is compatible with the scanners from Kodak Alaris. Adrian said: “That decision was largely due to the fact our operators are familiar with it, but we are now looking to purchase a second i5850 Scanner and considering upgrading to KODAK Capture Pro Software too.”

In addition to upgrading its fleet of document scanner, the past twelve months has seen Paper Escape invest heavily in its infrastructure, installing a lift to make it easier to move boxes of paperwork from storage to the scanning area, as well as expanding the area used to house clients’ physical storage requirements.

“Moving forward we are ramping up our marketing efforts, developing a new website and keenly focusing on winning new business to keep our fleet of scanners working at capacity,” Adrian concluded.