Benefits & Cost Justification

oscFile DOCUMENT IMAGING SYSTEM

BENEFITS & COST JUSTIFICATION

1. Supply and Equipment Costs are Lowered – Less Need for File Cabinets, Labels, Guides, Storage Boxes, Etc.

2. Space Savings or eliminate costly off-site storage

3. Productivity Improvement

4. Customer Service Improvement

5. Worker Turnover Reduction, Employee Accuracy and Morale Improvement.

One lateral file cabinet can cost $500 to $600 or more. With oscFile and a CD-4070NW Document Recorder or other ISIS or TWAIN compliant scanner, the network becomes your organization’s electronic file cabinet, which will allow the replacement of traditional vertical and/or lateral file cabinets or awkward record storage boxes.

In addition, the folders, labels, guides, etc. to fill a file cabinet can cost $200 to $300 or more per cabinet depending on the type and number of folders and other supplies used in the cabinet.

In comparison, one CD-R disc, which costs $1.00 or less, can store 20,000 pages based on the industry standard letter size CCITT chart no 1. The equivalent could be all the documents filed in a 4-drawer vertical file cabinet. Two 500 GByte disk drives, costing less than $200, can store 13,000,000 pages in a mirrored RAID 1 configuration. This would be the equivalent of over 600 filing cabinets.

Since filing cabinets may be replaced with an Electronic Filing System, space previously dedicated for file folder storage can be reclaimed and used for more productive and/or useful purposes.

Additionally, space has value and a “price tag” associated with it. For example, a typical lateral file cabinet measures 36” wide X 18” deep. However, when a drawer is pulled, 16” must be added to the depth, and an additional 24” must also be added for access. Therefore, 36”X18” becomes 36”X58” which equals 2088 square inches or 14.5 square feet. This equates to $203.00 per year per file cabinet based on average rental of $14 per square foot time 14.5 square feet.

If one CD-R disc can hold the contents of a four-drawer vertical file cabinet and a hundred or more of these discs can fit in one desk drawer, then operators could have at their fingertips the contents of a hundred filing cabinets which would otherwise require a very large room.

Time is saved creating electronic file folders compared to creating paper ones with employees affixing labels for indexing and labels for color-coding.

Filing is changed to high-speed scanning which is faster and more efficient because sorting is no longer necessary once you have the correct disk and because traveling (from a desk to filing cabinets and back to a desk) is eliminated.

Retrievals are much, much faster, particularly if you are using off-site storage.

Photocopying documents is easier and faster using electronic file folders with an imaging system compared to using a paper file folder system with a typical office photocopier.

If only one hour per day for only one employee is saved, $220.00/month is saved based on 22 working days per month multiplied by wages of $10.00 per hour (salary and fringe benefits). ($10/hour times 22 days/month equals $220.00/month.)

The public can be helped more quickly – usually while they are on the phone. This is especially important if people are calling long distance (and they are paying the long distance charges rather than your organization.)

In a paper system, personnel would take a telephone call, ask for a telephone number and then explain that someone would call back after the file folder is found in which case the long distance charges would then be normally borne by your organization rather than the caller. Telephone tag will add to this cost.

The worst and probably hardest job in any organization is that of a file clerk because of the monotony and the bending, reaching, stooping, squatting, etc. associated with paper systems. As a consequence, misfiles, lost files and other problems are always present in a paper system.

Because file clerks become “equipment operators” with an imaging system and because bending, reaching, stooping, squatting, and other inefficient actions are eliminated, worker productivity and morale increase. Also, when employees are more comfortable, accuracy improves and related problems are reduced. Finally, when employees enjoy their work and are happier, worker turnover, which can be costly in any organization, is also reduced.

Because of the user-friendly operation of the oscFile Document Imaging System, employees quickly become proficient with its use. Because the use of the scanner and oscFile Index does not require computer literacy, any employee regardless of skill level can use these tools to convert files to inexpensive CDs or to file online. Part time employees and employees with uneven workloads can now be more profitably used.