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USArchive & Imaging Services, Inc. expands business and capabilities with Kodak Scanners and Kodak Capture Pro Software

USArchive and Imaging Services, Inc. boasts a thriving document imaging operation, but their business model is a bit different than most. Along with scanning and document management, they provide consultation, integration, software and cloud-based solutions, training and more. Not unusual, but what’s uncommon is their unique partnership with AtWork!, a non-profit organization (and federal AbilityOne producer) dedicated to creating meaningful, skill-building opportunities for people with disabilities. A joint business relationship—called USArchive Powered By AtWork! (USAPBAW)—provides document imaging services to government and private firms that need digitized records and document destruction. As a team, USAPBAW trains and creates jobs for individuals with disabilities, and also brings their document management expertise to the arrangement, while AtWork! delivers production management/operations expertise and a talented, eager workforce.

“We help people and non-profit organizations learn useful, marketable skills and they help us be productive,” says Noreen Plath, Owner/VP of Business Developmen at USArchive, “Everyone involved feels good about the process and the mutual benefits. It’s a great way to support valuable organizations, aid non-profits, and assist deserving individuals in developing new, marketable skills and finding positions.”

Digitizing for more than three-quarters of the counties of Washington State

It’s clear that USArchive is doing many things right, as their business continues to expand impressively. Located in Issaquah, WA—about 10 miles from Seattle—USArchive provides everything from document scanning to wide-format document conversion…software and cloud-based solutions to digital mail toolboxes…and microfilm conversion to sales of Kodak Scanners (as an Authorized Reseller of Kodak Document Imaging Products). They not only sell Kodak Scanners, they also utilize a variety of models from Kodak in their daily operations.

USArchive likes to say they do business with everyone from the smallest home business to the federal government. They’ve carved out solid segments—primarily through word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals—in industries including legal, industrial,banking/finance, education and every level of government, including working with over three-quarters of the 39 counties in Washington. As volumes and projects grew, USAPBAW acquired a Kodak i750 Scanner in December of 2010 to keep pace with demand.

Maximizing the imaging features of Kodak Scanners

It’s projects like scanning approximately 2.5 million documents for Lane County, OR, or digitizing thousands of child support documents for the State of Idaho, where the value of their Kodak Scanners becomes most apparent at USArchive. “Tackling the Lane County project is a good example of why we love our Kodak i750 Scanner,” says Claire Phillips, Project Manager for Document Management. “We’re scanning all building permits for the county, dating back to the 1950s, and we’re capturing them at 300 dpi, as there’s a good deal of color in the documents. The speed of the i750 Scanner simply doesn’t lag: it delivers the full rated throughput in color, at resolution, with features like deskew turned on.”

As USAPBAW will scan about 1,200 boxes of documents by the time the Lane project is completed, maintaining ongoing productivity is crucial. Brent Romney, who heads up USArchive’s government operations and supports the USAPBAW production operation, focuses his praise on the iThresholding feature of the i750 Scanner. This aspect of Kodak’s Perfect Page technology automatically adjusts brightness and contrast, even on small, mixed-contrast areas of the same document. “We see very consistent image and text legibility and very, very few artifacts, thanks to iThresholding,” notes Romney.

The ability of their i750 Scanner to smoothly handle various weights of paper (and sizes from business card to legal) is also appreciated. Plath says that every possible type and thickness of NCR form has arrived in one box or another, and one image received was actually drawn on a portion of a shower curtain. (They didn’t run that one through the scanner, treating it as a true “exception document” instead.)

Along with the Kodak i750 Scanner, the USArchive team utilizes a variety of other Kodak Scanners in-house, including i260, i640, and i1220 models.

Optimizing the power of Kodak Capture Pro Software

A great many projects at USArchive, including the Lane County initiative, require OCR and indexing components. Here the quality of the image capture from their Kodak Scanners and the flexibility of Kodak Capture Pro Software become especially important. By capturing more data per scan (while not sacrificing any speed), the accuracy of the OCR process is enhanced, and the ability of Capture Pro Software to simplify repeated and complex tasks becomes valuable.

“We are able, on the Idaho project for example, to easily program hot keys to streamline indexing, using database lookup to populate various fields,” Phillips says. She also appreciates the capability of Capture Pro Software to process images again without rescanning. “We had an issue where permit numbers wound up on the wrong line and were able to go back into the batch, make the correction, and then reprocess without having to scan again. It’s a great timesaver.”.

Today USAPBAW holds 12 indexing and several capture licenses for Capture Pro Software.

Utilizing all that Kodak Service & Support offers

USArchive appreciates the preventive and break/fix aspects of Kodak Service & Support, along with the pre-sale, added-value aspects. They’ve taken advantage of training classes on indexing with Kodak Capture Pro Software, for example. They also like the timeliness and expertise of Kodak’s service. “The FEs are amazingly responsive and knowledgeable, as are the people who talk us through any issues on the phone at the help desk.”

Selling Kodak Scanners and spreading the good word

As an Authorized Reseller of Kodak Document Imaging Products, USArchive often includes Kodak Scanners in solutions they provide to clients who operate their own scanning operations. Recently they sold multiple Kodak i1220 and i1420 Scanners to a company specializing in tabulating election results. The company is also testing Capture Pro Software to utilize it as part of their overall vote counting solution.

“We are simply big advocates for Kodak Scanners, Capture Pro Software and Kodak Service & Support,” says Plath. “To us, ease of use, a fast learning curve, productivity and reliability are the keys, and every aspect of Kodak’s products and services that we utilize fulfill those goals for us.”