Compu-Stor has deployed a Kodak Alaris Info Input Solution for web-based, distributed capture, the first deployment of the solution in Australia following its launch in 2019.

Established in 1987, Compu-Stor is the largest privately-owned information management company in Australia. It offers end-to-end records management solutions to customers across both the public and private sectors from three locations in New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria.

As part of its drive to continuously transform and reinvent the business, extending its services beyond records management and document storage, Compu-Stor set-up a  new  division, Digital Transformation Solutions (DTS).

From its bases in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Manila, Philippines, DTS provides a range of outsourced services including document scanning, indexing, mailroom services, professional services, workflow automation solutions and hosting, to customers nationwide.

The company’s relationship with Kodak  Alaris  spans  two  decades. It operates a 22-strong fleet of Kodak branded scanners running with Alaris  Capture  Pro  Software for batch capture as well as  data extraction and delivery to repository and business applications.

Rapid growth and demand for its services prompted the  company to leverage technology that would enable workload to be split across multiple locations, for example, once images were scanned in one operation, it was easy for the indexing to be handled in another.

“With volumes growing exponentially, we made a business decision to continue to capture data from our non-government customers locally in Australia, and for our remote teams across the business to manage the indexing  process,” National Operations Manager, Frank Sulfaro explained.

“Alaris Capture Pro Software provides excellent imaging, indexing and output capabilities and we continue to  leverage that solution for jobs wholly processed in Australia. However, staff reported that the refresh rate of the images hosted locally was too slow, so we needed to find an alternative solution that would deliver a faster  refresh rate outside of the local set-up to ultimately increase productivity at that location,” he added.

Just as Compu-Stor decided to research an alternative capture solution, Kodak Alaris launched Alaris Info Input, a web-based and mobile capture  application  that is easy for workers who regularly scan across different departments or locations to implement and use.

“We operate  Kodak  scanners across the business, and our preference was not to switch to an alternative vendors’ solution. Our primary objective was to ensure that we minimised any disruption and did not incur additional cost to our ongoing operations,” said Sulfaro.

He added: “The timing on this was ideal, we didn’t have to look around. The existing long-standing relationship with Kodak Alaris, the fact that the  Alaris Info Input Solution would resolve the issues we had, coupled with its competitive pricing, was very attractive to us.”

Alaris Info Input enables faster capture and access to information – at the office or remotely - which has eliminated the issue of any delay in workers across the business in accessing scanned images. Compu-Stor continues to run Alaris Capture Pro software in parallel with Info Input Solution.

“Speeding up the image refresh rate was our primary objective,” said Sulfaro. “Our staff operating remotely are now able to access scanned images in realtime, which has dramatically improved productivity.”

He cited efficiency as key to ensuring the business remains competitive and that its costs are in line with the marketplace.

“We are now processing jobs much more efficiently than before. Because output is much faster, we don’t need as many people working on the same job to ensure we meet customers’  SLAs.  That has delivered additional business benefits around ensuring we remain cost-efficient.”

Another advantage  of  adopting a solution designed to work seamlessly with scanners from Kodak Alaris has been the ability to get up and running very quickly. The learning curve has been minimal.

“Our team are very experienced operating the Kodak scanners and Alaris Capture Pro Software, our workflows remain the same and migrating to Alaris Info Input Solution has not been a massive challenge,” Frank commented.

Both software solutions offer intelligent features such as the ability to automatically extract key data from documents, reducing processing time, and barcode reading abilities to seamlessly manage challenging documents.

The company has been able to leverage many of these capabilities from day one and has not had to adapt legacy processes or do things differently in order to maximise throughput.

“It’s provided us with greater visibility of workload across the business, helping our teams across all locations to better collaborate and work together,” said Sulfaro.

Further business expansion is part of the company’s strategic plan.

It intends to expand its physical presence across the country  and is considering a number of cities with the potential to open new branches. Importantly, the Info Input Solution provides Compu- Stor with capacity for further growth. The software is supplied on a concurrent user licensing model which means it’s very easy to flex and scale as the business needs.

“Alaris Info Input Solution truly is a future-proof solution, one that addresses our needs today and into the future, as we can simply add new licences to the current model as and when we need to. It’s already delivered many business benefits and we will achieve a strong return on investment,” said Sulfaro.

A video of this case study can be viewed online at https://vimeo.com/401207345/7cb3f7c705