Building a new digital edge for Australian business with INfuse scanning from Kodak Alaris

JayB Customer Story Kodak Alaris

Originally published by IDM

Industries such as construction and mining are leading the uptake of Kodak INfuse Smart Connected Scanning Solution in Australia, with the local reseller channel also targetting large scale deployments of the edge scanning model in healthcare, retail and education.

INfuse AX scanners are compact devices that can connect directly to a local or mobile Wi-Fi network without the requirement for a host PC. They can be simply configured by scanning an A4 configuration page and managed remotely via INfuse Management software.

Authorised INfuse Partners in Australia include solutions providers JayB Enterprises and Upstream, Australia Post’s inbound information management division Decipha, Konica Minolta and Ricoh Australia.

Mark Charge, Sales & Marketing Manager at JayB Enterprises, said, “For us it's about taking automation to the edge. We know that often processes start with a form, document or invoice that comes in the door. And at the moment, if you're a business in Australia, you’re probably manually entering data from data entering that form or invoice. What INfuse lets you do is completely remove that data entry from your process when it's coupled with workflow automation.

“We are now seeing a strong uptake of distributed scanning, where documents are being received somewhere else other than head office or a central location. A good example for us is construction.”

JayB has already helped its clients to deploy INfuse for a number of large customers in the construction industry that were battling with the challenge of handling paperwork from remote sites that could be over 500km away from head office.

“For these customers, delivery dockets are a really important part of their business process. We found they would be delivered to the site by suppliers and then placed into a messenger bag and once a week, they get shipped back to head office where a matching process goes on. Six staff members spent an entire day sorting paperwork every week, literally just stapling stuff together and putting it into a filing cabinet. And then the next day someone would come and takes it all back out, sort it into who should approve it and then put the invoices and delivery dockets back into a mailbag to send back to the site,” said Charge.

“What INfuse has allowed them to do is digitise the dockets at the point of delivery and completely move their AP process into the cloud via a document management and workflow solution. What that means is the process that took from several weeks and many, many hours of work is now done in minutes.

“Also, through INfuse's capability to give feedback to the end user, we're actually able to tell them when their scans are successful, especially in sites with a difficult network connectivity. That's really valuable because they're not left wondering, 'Oh, I wonder if that went through’ They can have confidence right away that their process has started.”

Also, a unique user message can be sent back to the scanner, such as “Page 3 missing a signature” or “Missing PO Number” so that a very clear description can be provided showing why the system cannot process the document.

“They're getting user feedback right away, and that's a really important part of INfuse and where it's really different to other scanning tools. It actually gives them the feedback on what they scan right then and there,” said Charge.

INfuse combines software and scanners from Kodak Alaris with a channel partner’s application to enable end users to easily onboard content directly into a business process. Kodak Alaris has recently added Windows Server 2019 support to the scanning platform which also works with public clouds Amazon, Alibaba and Microsoft Azure.

Three new Integrated Passport, A4 Legal and A3 Flatbed Scanners have also been added to the INfuse range, providing the ability to capture a wider variety of document types such as folders, books, bound materials or fragile and larger items that cannot be fed through the scanner.

A new Card Reader Accessory, including support for select third-party readers, provides a simple process for authenticating users requesting access to the scanners. This new functionality addresses customers’ data privacy, chain of custody and security concerns. Users can authenticate at the scanner using their employee ID badge, and once authenticated, can perform tasks according to their assigned permissions.

“Without having to do any configuration before it leaves us, we can actually just send the device with EasySetup Sheets easy config sheets in the box, direct to the customer, and then they can set it up themselves. So that has actually saved us a whole lot of time in deploying scanner units and means that the customer config is very, very straightforward,” said JayB Enterprises’ Mark Charge.

“From a reseller perspective, it significantly reduces their cost of deployment and technical services. And from a support perspective, it means that if there's ever any dramas, we can send through a config sheet as a PDF by email and they can just print and scan that to reset the machine back to its default settings. We can also configure and manage the interface from the cloud.

“Construction site offices would previously have to deploy an A4 multi-function device (MFD) and a PC which takes up a lot of space and has huge service costs. Now they can just deploy a small footprint Kodak INfuse AX Scanner which can even travel from one job to another with a site supervisor. It only needs an Internet connection and mobile WiFi is fine.

“Mining is another great opportunity. The INfuse Scanners are provided on subscription so it’s cost-effective to roll out a device to each site office. We simply send out a configuration sheet and can have a new location up and running within minutes of opening the box. Training is minimal, with the ability to provide on-screen prompts for end users.

“There are plenty of other opportunities in retail and healthcare for instance where people can get rid of a bulky MFD and have one of these small footprint scanners on every desk.

“Where people would previously have to move paper back to a central location for processing, now for cents per page they can move to a distributed scanning model and start getting their data right in there,” said Charge. https://www.alarisworld.com/en-au/landing-page/infuse-smart-connected-scanning