They're fast. They're tough. They're expensive. There's a lot of them out there. How do you choose the one that's right for you?
At the heart of any production imaging system -- be it healthcare forms processing, optical mark test scoring, remittance processing, check processing, an electronic mail room or anything else -- you'll find high-speed scanners. Without these trusty workhorses, the cost savings and efficiencies of high-volume imaging wouldn't exist.
Choosing a high-speed scanner takes time and thought because they're expensive. All the other components of your system depend on the scanner. If it's not fast enough, if it breaks down often. If it produces shabby images, you've got troubles. If it's fast and good, reliable OCR and accurate processing will follow.
Here are eight things to look for in a high-speed scanner:
1. Duty cycle. Ability to take wear and tear is key in production scanning. The scanner's daily or monthly duty cycle should be higher than your daily or monthly volume.
Another measure of durability is mean time between failures (MTBF). This is measured in hours.
2. Speed. We consider scanners high-speed if their rated speed is 60 or more pages per minute (ppm). Rated speeds are dream speeds achieved in manufacturers' labs. You won't get rated speeds in production. If a scanner is rated at 100 ppm you'll get about 75 ppm. Test the scanners with batches of your documents.
Some vendors tell you the scanner's speed in landscape mode. In landscape mode you feed paper in lengthwise, then rotate it in software or the interface board to read it on the screen. 8.5" x 11" sheets scan faster in landscape because they have two and a half fewer inches to push across the CCD. We compare scanner speeds in portrait mode and simplex mode. That's traditional scanning. It's apples to apples. If you want to scan in landscape or duplex mode, look for those features.
Consider buying two moderately fast scanners instead of one very fast scanner. The faster scanner has the advantage of operator ease -- you just pile a huge stack of paper in the machine and go. The really big expensive machines are stronger and tougher than the smaller ones. Two smaller ones give you redundancy. If one scanner goes down, the other keeps on going. You also have two machines to maintain.
3. Double feed detection. If you've ever scanned batches of paper, you know that double feeds, jams and misfeeds are the bane of an operator's existence. Manufacturers use light, sound and other methods to detect double feeds. Buying a scanner with double feed detection that works saves a lot of time and effort.
4. Paper path. Once the machine accepts the paper properly, it runs it through its camera and into the output bin. Some methods of paper movement are better than others. The fewer twists and turns the paper takes, the less opportunity for paper jams.
5. Image quality. This is hard to measure. Most of these scanners are capable of a high resolution such as 400 dpi. But this slows them down. The rated speed calls for 200 dpi. Manufacturers work on other aspects of image quality. Some offer sophisticated thresholding algorithms. These let the scanner make enlightened decisions about whether a pixel should be black or white. Some threshold and deskew in grayscale, to make these decisions more accurately. Some provide image cleanup, removing useless specks and background colors.
6. Grayscale and/or color. Scanners that capture levels of grayscale and color perceive coffee stains, stamps, color backgrounds and barcodes that binary scanners miss or mistake for text. They're great for forms.
7. A flexible light source. Chances are you'll want color dropout if you're doing volume document scanning. Drop out the background on colored sheets of paper to reduce the size of your image.
Include only the information you need. Drop out the colored boxes on forms. A green lightbulb drops out the green on a document. Red drops out red and blue drops out blue. A scanner that lets you choose dropout colors easily (pressing a button, making a software change or replacing a bulb) is useful.
8. Extras. Some scanners offer an optional document printer. This prints numbers or barcodes on scanned pages. This makes them easier to index and find. Some offer a foot switch to free the operator's hands. Barcode recognition comes with some. On others it's an option.
These are some of the most popular high-speed scanners on the market:
BancTec (Dallas, TX 972-450-7700) brings its check processing finesse to document scanning. While they say their S-220 scanner (220 ppm) is the fastest document scanner in the universe (we're keeping an eye on Neptune), it's the slowest BancTec scanner. Check scanning is many times faster than document scanning.
S Series scanners start at 70 pages a minute. They're named after their speeds -- S-70 scans 70 pages a minute, S-100 scans 100 ppm, ditto for the S-150, S-185 and S-220. Prices start in the mid-30s for the S-70 to $94,000+ for the S-220.
This machine is field upgradable. Buy the S-70 for moderate production scanning. When you need more speed, call a BancTec engineer. In a few hours, your machine will be a 150 ppm or 220 ppm scanner.
As it scans pages of all shapes and sizes this scanner deskews, despeckles and dynamically thresholds without skipping a beat. It has a straight-through paper path with rollers. It handles all types of documents -- 26" long pages, thick paper, tissue paper, carbons, rice paper from the Far East.
The scanner camera is designed with a low signal-to-noise ratio to produce clear images. The same camera has been used to capture fingerprints. A multiscale thresholding algorithm tracks the background and characters on a page. The scanner deskews images in grayscale, reducing character distortion. You can turn this feature on or off without changing your scanning speed.
Kofax, Diamond Head, Intrafed, VIP/ImageCAP and ISIS have written interfaces to this scanner.
Bell & Howell (Arlington Heights, IL 847-357-0630) has two high-speed scanner series -- the Copiscan 8000 and the PS Series.
Copiscan 8000 scanners ($20,000 to $40,000) have a video interface and process eight-bit grayscale. Select red, green or blue dropout without changing the bulb. The U-shaped roller-driven paper transport handles paper of all sizes and thicknesses. The Adaptive Contrast Enhancement board contains two ASIC chips and a PM44 microprocessor for two-dimensional dynamic thresholding, image cropping and analog or digital operation. The scanner's recognition enhancement technology produces better scans for optical character recognition.
The paper input and output bins face the front making loading and retrieving documents ergonomically easy. Download software upgrades by modem. Ultrasound double feed detection finds double feeds by bouncing sound off the pages as they enter the scanner and listens to the echo. One echo means one sheet, two echos mean a double feed. The scanner doesn't depend on the paper's length or thickness to find a double feed. The paper path is a U shape. The scanner's clamshell design lets you retrieve jammed paper anywhere in the scanner by opening one door.
The $45,000 Copiscan 8125 runs 100 ppm in simplex mode and 200 images a minute duplex. The 8080 is 60 ppm portrait, 80 ppm landscape. It also comes in a duplex model.
The PS Series was built by Photomatrix (San Diego, CA 619-625-4400). Bell & Howell sells three. The $45,000 PS100v scans 82 pages a minute portrait mode. The $52,500 PS120v is 100 ppm. The $60,000 PS150v is 105 ppm. They process 50,000 documents a day. They have vacuum transports. Their mean time between failure is 2,500 hours. They're used by service bureaus, remittance processing and other high-volume applications.
CGK's (Dallas TX 214-630-3606) $56,000 ScanStar 5045C is one of the few high-speed scanners that captures color images. It scans and processes 60 documents a minute. Duplex it scans 240 images a minute. It ICRs and archives as it scans. It outputs binary, 256-level grayscale and 24-bit color images. It rotates the images in 90-degree steps.
The scanner can handle documents of different colors mixed in one batch. It uses JPEG compression to reduce those file sizes. The ScanStar detects double feeds by measuring the transparency, thickness and length of the paper to make sure a document is indeed one sheet.
Fujitsu's (San Jose, CA 408-432-6333) M3099 scanners are some of the most mature in their price range -- $26,000 to $31,000. They've been shipping since 1994. The M3099EH/GH scans 80 ppm simplex, 120 ppm duplex. The M3099EX/GX is slightly slower -- 60 ppm simplex, 100 ppm duplex -- but it's bigger and scans documents up to 11" x 17".
Both scanners' duty cycle is 10,000 to 15,000 pages a day. Their mean time between failure is long -- 10,000 hours. They have a wide C-shaped paper path. The input and output hoppers hold 1,000 pages each. A prepicking function prepares the next document for reading while the current document is being scanned. The EH and EX scanners work with video boards, the GH and GX are SCSI-2.
Imaging Business Machines' (Birmingham, AL 205-956-4071) -- $105,000+ ImageTrac scans 90 pages a minute and produces 24-bit color or black and white images. It compresses the color images in JPEG on the fly. Black and white images are compressed in CCITT.
The ImageTrac accepts intermixed checks, W-2s, 8 1/2" by 11" paper and carbon-backed airline tickets. It has a straight-through paper path with five belts and a vacuum transport. It compresses images in CCITT and JPEG formats. The scanning software runs on a computer integrated with the scanner. It has a touch screen.
Options you can buy for this scanner include a high-speed barcode reader, a front side inkjet printer, duplex scanning and 15 sort pockets.
Eastman Kodak (Rochester, NY 716-724-4000) upgraded their Imagelink high-speed scanners. They have an Adaptive Threshold Processor which uses algorithms to distinguish background from foreground. They enhanced the scanner cameras to create cleaner images. They renamed them Digital Science and introduced the new versions with lower prices and faster speeds. The scanners have ball bearing and belt transports.
The $30,000 Digital Science 5500 replaces the Imagelink 500. It scans 60 pages a minute in portrait mode, 80 ppm landscape. The $40,000 duplex model handles up to 160 landscape images a minute. The scanner can process up to 12,000 pages per eight-hour shift. The $40,000 Digital Science 7500 scans 90 pages a minute portrait, 120 landscape. Duplex it's $50,000 and scans up to 240 images a minute landscape. It can handle 8,000 to 18,000 documents in an eight-hour day.
The $80,000 Digital Science 9500 takes the place of the Imagelink 923. It scans 120 ppm portrait, 160 ppm landscape. Duplex ($90,000) it scans 320 images a minute landscape. Typical daily volumes are 12,000 to 30,000 documents.
Panasonic's (Secaucus, NJ 201-348-7000) KV-SS855 ($25,000) scans 85 pages a minute. Duplex 160 images a minute. It produces binary or grayscale scans. Panasonic Image Enhancement software (included) lets the scanner set white levels, reduce image distortion and separate photos from text in scanned images. If this scanner breaks down during the first year, Panasonic replaces it with a new unit within 24 hours.
The Vision Series 5000 from Photomatrix (San Diego, CA 619-625-4400) competes with the BancTec and Kodak scanners. Price ranges from $40,000 to $70,000. The 5104 scans 100 pages a minute. The 5124 scans 120 ppm, the 5154 scans 150 ppm and the 5204 scans 200 ppm. The "4" at the end of each name stands for the scanners' 400 dpi resolution.
They use vacuum transport. "That's a superior technology because as soon as the paper hits the scanner bed, it's flattened out," says Samir Bhatia, director of scanner products. "The vacuum sucks it down. Any type of paper can be fed through." The duty cycles are 100,000 pages a day.
The scanners look at five pixels simultaneously as they threshold their scans. "That's a minute area to determine whether it's a background or a foreground," Bhatia says. "It's known as a five by five convolution filter."
A new paper feeder called the Smart Feeder handles pages of mixed weights and sizes. It holds 500 sheets. These scanners work with the Kofax 9275, the Seaport IP20 and Blueridge and J&K boards.
Ricoh (San Jose, CA 408-432-8800) has three scanners in the 60 ppm range. The $7,000 IS430 scans in grayscale as well as black and white. It loads and returns documents from the front. An optional image processing unit automatically distinguishes text from photos and processes them differently. It also performs dynamic thresholding, which adjusts contrasts, smoothes characters and removes unwanted marks.
Ricoh's higher-end scanners -- the IS5X0 Series -- were designed and built by Improvision Research (Emeryville, CA 800-955-3453). The $14,000-$17,000 IS510 and IS520 are 60 ppm scanners. The IS520, the duplex model, processes 110 images a minute. They have easily replaced florescent lamps for green, red or blue color dropout. They can endorse scans, recognize barcodes and control batches with separator sheets. They provide up to 600 dpi.
The IS520GS ($20,000 to $25,000) is also 60 ppm and capable of 600 dpi. Duplex it captures 120 images a minute. Grayscale scanning is an option. It provides dynamic thresholding and noise removal. It compresses in Group IV and JBIG. It can endorse documents with an inkjet printer and endorse scans electronically.
Scan-Optics (Manchester, CN 860-645-7878) has very high-end machines with built-in OCR. The $145,000+ Model 7800 scans 210 ppm simplex, 420 ipm duplex. It has a straight paper path. It imprints serial numbers and reads bar codes and patch codes. It can handle document sizes up to 11" by 17". It lets you select drop out colors from your computer.
The $300,000+ Series 9000 scanners scan 200 pages a minute. They automatically recognize up to 10,000 characters a second. They read handwriting, custom fonts and marks. They automatically deskew, rotate and crop images. They're used to scan membership enrollments, tax forms, subscriptions, time sheets, warranty cards and health care forms.
Siemens ElectroCom's (Arlington, TX 817-640-5690) IntelliScan 120 scans 120 pages a minute. The duplex model, the IntelliScan 240, scans 240 images a minute in grayscale at 300 dpi.
These scanners scan in landscape mode and rotate the scans 90 degrees on the fly. Two RISC computers inside the machines process images in grayscale and deskew, despeckle and crop images in real-time. They remove color backgrounds. They read bar and patch codes, endorse documents and automatically index scans using ElectroCom's AEG Recognition OCR/ICR engine. They have a straight paper path and vacuum transport. They're used to scan tests and forms.
VisionShape's (Orange, CA 714-282-2668) $16,000 VS-7590A scanner scans 75 pages a minute portrait, 90 ppm landscape. It can handle 10,000 pages a day. Its VisionACE board performs adaptive thresholding, edge sharpening and single pixel patch and removal.
VisionShape rolled out a SCSI version of this scanner in October. The VS-7590A/SCSI is $17,000. It does Group IV and TIFF compression, image deskew and barcode recognition in real-time.
