Review

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 14 No 06 - November/December 2006

As organisations try to encourage employees to make wider use of networked devices in order to maximise their ROI, it becomes clear that a major barrier to acceptance of distributed scanning is the perceived complexity of the process.

Compared to using a printer or a copier, the steps involved in scanning, routing and saving an image are still considered by many to be too technical for the average knowledge worker.

While we know that this is not really the case, it is reassuring to see Kodak attempting to redress this image problem - pardon the pun - with the Scan Station 100. In much the same way as Kodak is simplifying photo processing via touch screen kiosks in retail centres (who can forget the nauseatingly cute American kid in their TV ad?) the company is now applying the keep-it-simple approach to image capture.

The Scan Station is a genuinely innovative office solution that combines high-quality scanning of paper documents with intuitive operation, enabling people to share images via email, save them to a network folder, send them to a network printer or copier, or store them on a portable USB drive - all from one device.

No dedicated PC or additional software are required: the colour LCD touch screen enables previewing of scanned documents prior to sharing and can even be rotated for maximum flexibility and ease of viewing. It connects to the user's existing network via a 10/100 Base-T Ethernet connection.

Kodak's well-established PerfectPage image enhancement technology is included, generating high quality digital files in a number of common formats (JPG, TIF, PDF and even searchable PDF), literally at the touch of a button. The scanner itself is essentially a Kodak i40, offering simplex and duplex scanning in colour, greyscale and black-and-white at up to 25 pages per minute (50 images per minute duplex), and includes a special document feeder (front-feed and front-return) for scanning "hard cards" (credit cards, driver's licenses, potentially ID cards) and other small documents.
Kodak has given a lot of thought to the type of application that might suit the Scan Station:

• Office staff in a doctor's practice can scan a new patient's information, insurance card, medical charts, test results and all related paperwork to the same patient file posted on the practice's private network.
• A law firm's administrative assistant might scan vital client documents that are simultaneously routed to a network file available to its legal team and emailed to co-counsel at another firm.
• A delivery service driver can scan daily delivery documents, which are quickly and easily transferred to the delivery company's internal billing system - and subsequently to each customer's respective account.

In practice the potential applications for a device like this are almost limitless: as well as health, professional services and logistics, such markets as insurance, accounting, and financial services could equally benefit from a truly intuitive scanning solution.

The Scan Station 100 has a street price under 3,000 euros including a 12-month warranty (extendable to 36 months at extra charge).
More info: www.kodak.com

Review