Kyocera's end-to-end workflow solution - from software to printers

Today's companies need comprehensive IT systems that can solve business problems, optimize costs and increase employee efficiency - this is true for any area of ​ ​ activity, including the docflow we are considering. In this case, to build a full-featured solution, both programs and traditional computers are needed, as well as specialized hardware solutions - printers, scanners, multifunctional devices (MFUs).

Only one company - Kyocera - provides a functionally complete set of products for building document management systems, using its proposal as an example and consider the tools for building a modern docflow. Interestingly, changes in the concept of this vendor led to the fact that the famous manufacturer of corporate printers and MFIs even changed its name - now it completely sounds like "Kyocera Document Solutions."

The system must be complex!

The company created a slender concept of managing the workflow process at customers - Managed Document Services (MDS). It is important that MDS provides for scaling, which allows it to be relevant for companies of various sizes: from SMB to corporations. Of course, software solutions must be flexible so that they can adapt their functionality to a specific customer: to the peculiarities of its tasks, structure, etc.

It is important that adaptation is a complex process that often requires both the introduction of technical solutions and the formalization and revision of a number of internal processes that are relevant to working with documents. To do this, you need specialized expertise, which is available to Kyocera Document Solutions and local partners of the company. A full range of services is available to customers: Kyocera and its local partners are able to implement consulting, supply and configuration of equipment, creation of a system for working with documents, as well as provide its further maintenance with minimal costs.

MDS has created specialized function modules for different groups of tasks encountered in the docflow organization. Let's take a closer look at what Kyocera Capture Manager (CMM) can do to process the inbound document flow first. The processing of incoming documents is labor-intensive, and therefore expensive, so consider KSM, which, if properly applied, can significantly reduce the total costs of docflow for customers.

Companies come in large quantities and in different formats.

Sources are different

In any company, there can be many sources of incoming documents. Documents can be transmitted by suppliers and buyers, partners and representatives of regulators, own employees - managers, forwarding agents, driver, etc. All these flows must be formalized, which is a combination of managerial and technical tasks.

For example, in electronic form, incoming documents can be received by e-mail, be placed on file exchanges, appear on computers on the office local area network or on servers of the corporate infrastructure, be delivered on mobile devices, etc. What will be allowed and what is prohibited for different groups of employees depends on the protocols adopted in the company. Creating a range of permissions is only part of the flow management tasks.

What documents come in

Incoming documents today are of various types: contracts, acts, accounts, invoices, questionnaires, survey forms, barcodes, etc. However, in any case, they cannot be directly placed in the general base of the company. It requires pre-processing, unification and specialized "data mining" - automatic extraction from the incoming specified sets of significant data for later use in business applications: from EPR and CRM to accounting and reports for senior management.

Incoming documents can be both initially in electronic form and come "on paper," that is, require a preliminary scan with subsequent text recognition (OCR). However, OCR may also be required for documents in electronic form, which may be in the form of JPEG or PDF files. Note that the recognition technologies used by Kyocera are very powerful - they can even work with hand-written documents!

From Documents to Data

KSM performs a number of actions, which in terms of Kyocera are called "conversion of unstructured data." You need to perform a series of intelligent actions on incoming documents. For example, scanning a check and placing its image in a file store, as well as recognizing text from a check - processes are necessary, but insufficient. From the recognized text from the check, you need to select the amount, date, tax ID number of the payer, VAT data and other significant information that should be automatically placed in the specified customer databases after determination. Similar operations need to be performed with contracts, accounts, consignment notes and with documents of other types.

All this should also be formalized, optimized and automated, which allows you to do KCM. The package includes all the tools needed for both document collection and transformation, as well as for the initial distribution of the received data to repositories, databases, departments, individual employees , etc.

General interaction scheme of Kyocera Capture Manager: where we get, how we perform primary processing and where we send the result.

Pre-sorting

In the next step, the KCM must distribute the received information. Some documents must be placed in the specified folders of the enterprise storage (traditional or "cloud"), others are sent by e-mail to the responsible persons (in a convenient form for further work: original, full text or "squeezes"), others are presented in the form of text and numbers placed in the specified fields of the corporate databases, etc.

It is important that the CMF can be integrated with other programs that support the customer's business. It can be its document management system, accounting applications and other systems of financial and economic divisions, the office, HR, etc. In some cases, different internal processes must be automatically initiated within these systems. For example, you create a task for a specific employee to familiarize themselves with the document received, for a manager to approve account expenses, and for some insiders to require the attention of the top directorate.

The data source for KCM can be mobile devices.

KSM and not only

Recall that KSM is only one of the components provided within the framework of Managed Document Services. Kyocera has created a full range of functional modules. It is important that at the same time, each of them has tools for protecting information, separating access (both to documents and technology), etc. Of the functional software modules, we mention, for example, Kyocera Net Manager  (KNM), created to work with a hierarchical network structure at different stages - from deployment to support. This structure can include server solutions for storing documents, printers and scanners for working with paper, as well as other components.

KNM allows you to deploy document circulation in companies of any size: with a total number of users up to one hundred thousand people, and there are no restrictions on the fleet of equipment at all. Note that KNM can work with any office equipment, although, as noted in the company, it is preferable to use printing devices and MFIs manufactured by Kyocera. It is important that KNM can be scaled (for example, to multiple servers) and allows you to interact with other enterprise systems (for example, enterprise document management, which the customer already has).

KCM can be considered as a specialized platform for automating the "capture" of incoming, primary processing and distribution to stores and/or responsible for further work with documents.

Results

Kyocera provides a full range of hardware, software solutions and services for building enterprise docflow systems. The company's Managed Document Services concept is optimal for creating and optimizing a document management system, automating a number of processes, and creating a single, solid and slender solution that improves employee productivity and minimizes docflow costs.

Optimization of document flow, as practice shows, saves significant resources of the customer. The introduction of modern docflow systems sometimes affects the business performance of companies from different vertical markets, and so strong that working with document flow is often considered as a specific "digital transformation." In addition, the automation of internal processes and the exclusion of routine operations positively affect the efficiency of employees, which in modern conditions is extremely important.

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