Situation
West Coast service bureau ViaTRON processes three million pages per week for clients primarily in state government, higher education, and entertainment – such as movie studios and casinos. Services range from scanning to Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and beyond.
Objectives
Handle huge scanning and image processing demands as efficiently as possible, while meeting all compliance demands, increasing efficiency, and always getting the job done on time and on budget.
Solution
A fleet of Kodak i5000 and i4000 Series Scanners that are productive, reliable, and able to go on the road for on-site capture – teamed with Kodak Capture Pro Software from Kodak Alaris, optimized for ViaTRON’s workflows.
Results
ViaTRON’s scanners (and software) from Kodak Alaris are major reasons for
their success, growth, and ability to delight clients. Running two or three
shifts, these proven heavy-duty scanners deliver every day.
ViaTRON President Geoff Erwin is effusive in his praise of his company’s partnership with Kodak Alaris. “We wouldn’t be successful without scanners and software from Kodak Alaris,” he says. “We use scanners from Kodak Alaris because they are workhorses running two to three shifts, all day and night at times. No other scanners we’ve tried deliver the image quality, true speeds, and smooth performance we need.”
With over 200 employees, ViaTRON Systems, Inc. has been scanning documents since 1990. Headquartered in Gardena (near Los Angeles), CA, ViaTRON is a leading US service bureau with additional facilities in Las Vegas, NV and Dallas, TX. They also operate “silo sites” at client facilities for on-location capture, taking their scanners on the road. Erwin attributes company growth to going the extra mile for clients: micromanaging requests and mandates, meticulous document prep, faultless chain of custody procedures, and additional value-added services. “We’re all about flexibility for our clients,” Erwin notes. “We’ll set up an assembly line process in a hallway at a casino in Las Vegas, for example, or scan 3,000 boxes into Open Text within a few days. Our motto is ‘No page left behind!’”
Devoted to scanners and software from Kodak Alaris
Today, they utilize eleven Kodak i5000 Series Scanners, five Kodak i4000 Series Scanners, and rely on Kodak Capture Pro Software for scanning, quality control, and indexing. ViaTRON processes about 1,200 banker boxes per week – approximately three million documents. These range from HR records to invoices and checks, project files to receipts, hand-written notes to hard cards – for clients primarily in state government, higher education, and entertainment, including movie studios and casinos.
ViaTRON also resells Kodak Alaris products. If a client needs to perform lower volume distributed capture, ViaTRON will recommend one of the desktop models from Kodak Alaris, such as the Kodak S2000 Series, citing how features only found previously on high-volume scanners from Kodak Alaris are now offered on desktop models: capabilities such as onboard image processing and controlled output stacking. ”We also appreciate how Kodak Alaris helps with loaner units for trial,” says Erwin. “If, for instance, a college wants to try out scanning in their admissions department or other areas, it’s a big benefit for them to be able to do a hands-on trial before they buy.”
We use scanners from Kodak Alaris because they are workhorses running two to three shifts, all day and night at times. And no other scanners deliver the image quality, true speeds, and smooth performance we need. Geoff Erwin President, ViaTRON Systems, Inc.
Demonstrating the superiority of their preferred brand
Erwin’s organization not only believes in Kodak Alaris’ products, they validate this performance continuously. “Because we are a significant player in the service bureau world, other manufacturers regularly provide us with scanners to test,” Erwin notes. “And every time, thus far, these competing scanners have been found to be wanting and not up to the high-performance standards our Kodak Alaris units deliver.”
Erwin cites a number of reasons why scanners from Kodak Alaris consistently offer more. “First, their ability to take whatever we load into them in terms of varying sizes and thicknesses,” Erwin says. “There’s less pre-sorting required, a real time saver.” Competing scanners may win the feeds and speeds statistical race on paper, but they don’t come through under real-world conditions. As Erwin says, “Going off advertised PPM is useless if the mechanisms aren’t there to prevent jams, double feeds, and other issues.” When operators must continuously stop workflows, open scanners, and clear paper, productivity suffers significantly.
“With our scanners from Kodak Alaris, these interruptions are very rare,” says Erwin. “And they are the only scanners we’ve ever used where we can turn on multiple image enhancement features and still maintain rated speeds.” This is another critical factor for ViaTRON as superb image quality and accuracy delivered by Kodak Alaris’ Perfect Page technology are essential in the scanned images they provide to clients, especially when the project demands zonal OCR and barcode reading.
As a Kodak Alaris Partner, ViaTRON has also participated in the development and evolution of products, including Capture Pro Software. “Our engineers and experts work closely with the developers at Kodak Alaris, so we’ve had direct input into the program’s evolution, such as how batches are opened and handled,” Erwin cites. “With other manufacturers we’ve spoken with product managers, not engineers, and sometimes ideas get lost or muddled in the translation.”
Doing the math for significant savings
Recently, ViaTRON scanned 19,000 boxes of case files for a Superior Court in California. Documents ranged in quality from poor to excellent, including photocopies of IDs and second-generation pages. Employees spent about 1.5 hours scanning each box, as these were complicated files.
Using dual-stream scanning, enabled by Capture Pro Software, color and black-and-white images were captured in a single scan, saving a great deal of operator time. Without dual-stream capabilities, separator pages would need to be inserted – and later removed – to identify color and black-and-white pages/sections. Images could also be reviewed during the QC process, allowing operators to select color images for best quality when appropriate. 
Doing the math: 1.5 hours per box times 19,000 boxes equals 28,500 total hours. If dual- stream scanning wasn’t used, ViaTRON estimates an additional half hour of document prep would be required for each box, along with the time required for the separator sheet processes. This .5 hours/box adds up to an additional 9,500 hours. 9.500 x $20 per hour equals $190,000 in savings. And that doesn’t include the .01¢ purchase and printing cost per separator sheet. Based on about 50 sheets per box, another $9,500 in savings were realized. All thanks to dual stream capability from Kodak Alaris.
Partnership has its rewards
“Working so closely with Kodak Alaris and having input into product enhancements and development is a big plus for us,” Erwin says. “Their people, products, and service that’s always there… these are all aspects of what is, for us, an ideal relationship. Kodak Alaris embodies true partnership in many meaningful ways. They are a big reason why we continue to win contracts, succeed, and expand at ViaTRON. We couldn’t be happier with the professionalism and performance of Kodak Alaris.”
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