Technology Implementation Paper
University of
TEC 401 Human Factors in Technology
Dr.
April 15, 2007
Technology Implementation Paper
In this technology implementation paper, it will detail how a new technology system such as a company going paperless should be implemented. Included will be information on an organization that attempted to use the paperless equipment. It will include recommendations from the manager in charge of implementing the new technology. There will also be ideas on how project plans, implementation plans, training plans and support strategies should or should not be shared by technical and non-technical staff.
The company would like to create a paperless office environment committing all forms of paper that would formerly be stored in paper files to a digital storage system. That includes all incoming mail items that were formerly recorded and stored in Transactional Date Files. Applications, new business, renewal policies, endorsements, claims, audits, and any other documents that the agency retains are scanned and stored digitally. The company did not retroactively commit historical records to a digital format. They are allowing the “age through” the normal paper retention cycle of seven years. (2007)
Paperless orientation has changed our agency perhaps even more than our initial conversion from a non-automated paper based agency to an automated one. Virtually every function that is performed as an insurance agency has been improved by a paperless orientation. There would not be any file cabinets anywhere and never any misplaced documents. Any document that has been digitized can immediately be retrieved and re-sent or re-directed as needed without the employee leaving the chair. Trade journal articles on management, mergers/acquisitions employee issues; new market sources, complete client claims folders, company experience reports and any information the agency maintains is now both instantly available and available remotely from around the world. After a short initial hesitancy, the staff is mesmerized about how much improved the paperless environment is as a workplace. A paperless office environment and digital record orientation are two critical components of success for agencies in the future.
The hardware the company added consisted of small scanners at each individual work-station to permit digital input from paper documents delivered to the agency. The software they use (Paper port) was included with the scanners. The scanners were 9 each, when they purchased five of them including one for each work-station. To achieve the dependability and redundancy needed for this transition, they upgraded their server to a Dell RAD5 Server with 18 GB file storage capacity. The server replacement caused many short-term conflicts with software which is atypical of a server replacement. Paper port also supports the desk-top faxing component because scanned documents can be converted by another program, J2 Messenger and integrated with Outlook Address Book for full seamless integration. (2007)
The server conversion was the most challenging implementation issue. They also experienced conflicts of the scanner software with other software programs on each P/C. They company also experienced intermittent scanner failures requiring multiple re-booting of P/C’s during the day and sometimes a requirement to re-boot the server. They have isolated the issue to the Visioneer Strobe-Pro Scanners and their outdated drivers. They are currently tolerating the intermittent nuisance of re-booting and are re-assessing their scanner hardware.
The company expects to move to a different flatbed scanner with a vertical physical desk-top position which will have a small footprint similar to the very beneficial small footprint of the Strobe-Pro scanners. (2007)
The one thing the company would have done differently was to have discovered this solution at least two years sooner. No technology implementation in 15 years has been as exciting in the result it has delivered to their entire agency as going paperless has done for them.
What does the company assess to be the ROI interval for this implementation? The company has not been able to quantify specifically this except to state that the return is instant. Retrieval of even a transactional filed paper document takes at least a few minutes. They have no retrieval costs and have now been on this configuration for nine months. The staff would never return even to the transactional filing model again. There is almost no paper floating around the office. Every staff member is able to complete work faster and with less stress than ever before. Any digital document that is filed in the Paper port program can be e-mailed or faxed anywhere instantly and there is full integration with the Outlook Contact List at the server level. (2007)
Is the implementation more of an agency benefit or customer’s benefit? Implementation is clearly and unequivocally a win for both the customer and the agency. Their customer response time for any follow-up is greatly enhanced by never having to leave a work-station to retrieve a document for discussion. (2007)
The staff reluctantly retained their paper transaction date folders for five working days. At the end of five days, they were asked to confirm their confidence in the new digital transactional file by retrieving both their own and others’ documents. Successfully being able to do so on the fifth day enabled them to discard their paper transactional date files. Because they had been transactionally filing all lines for 12 years prior to this implementation, conversion to a digital transactional date file was not a major culture shift for their staff; only a major and instant benefit. (2007)
When our organization attempted to create a paperless office environment, it did not go as well as the organization the paper has been discussing so far. The organization decided to become a reseller of the Ricoh eCabinet and did not have any luck with his or her clients. The sales representative from Ricoh and our sales manager traveled to several clients for a demonstration but they did not receive the results he or she was hoping for. The organization received a free eCabinet but unfortunately, it sat in the server room and was not used at the time I left employment there. The employees believe that Nacogdoches was too small of a town to appreciate the convenience of a paperless office environment. There were a couple of organizations that were a paperless office environment but they received their equipment direct from the distributor instead of a reseller where the price would be more expensive.
The eCabinet is a network document repository for departments and workgroups that integrates seamlessly with office equipment. The eCabinet gives users the ability to capture documents and automatically index them, providing a secure archive while enabling fast retrieval. The eCabinet combines software, plus a hardware storage appliance to deliver the benefits of a full electronic archival and retrieval solution. The eCabinet integrates with Ricoh MFP’s, faxes and scanners to provide a seamless method for converting paper to electronic documents. The Cabinet 2100 Series is ideal for mid-sized offices and workgroups looking for in-house electronic document archiving. (2007)
The major applications of the eCabinet Electronic are document storage and document management, reliable document/file archiving and backup, and disaster recovery preparedness. The benefits of the eCabinet are the facts that it integrates with MFPs, faxes and scanners to provide a seamless solution for converting paper to electronic documents, fast access to eDocuments vs. paper, reduces the time required to respond to customers or resolve issues, central document repository, backup and archive, and efficient document management with full-text and keyword indexing, search and retrieval. (2007)
Stored documents can be shared within workgroups, departments or remote offices. Access controls can be adjusted to share commonly accessed documents or restrict confidential documents. Lost or destroyed files can easily be retrieved, ensuring continuity within the office. Remote web access to stored documents by logging in with a username and password, and supports any size paper.
Implementing this solution for the company would include advantages such as eCabinet stores and indexes files by communicating with network peripherals such as copiers, scanners, fax machines and printers – all without creating network bottlenecks, ingestion capacity of 15 pages per minute, approximately 2 million pages internal storage capacity, 10-20 million pages operating capacity (indexing/handling), eCabinet connectors integrate with document capture/indexing software, and SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) available. (2007)
In conclusion, the paperless office environment can be a wonderful new experience for everyone in the organization. The paperless equipment will be more convenient for the employees and reduce the work load. It would be nice if the city where I am employed would consider the paperless equipment to reduce the paper that is filed everywhere in the office.
Reference
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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