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The MFP could be considered 'the ultimate multi-tasker': print, copy, fax and scan all at the press of a button. Multi-purpose devices like MFPs are an extremely popular, productive and cost-effective piece of office equipment. They fit almost anywhere and are easily deployed in offices or in workgroups. But will your MFP be able to handle the document archiving job that you need to get started on?

In convenience applications, such as everyday work tasks, MFPs are invaluable. However, when a specific function, such as scanning, is required and the job volume is intense, you need to consider using a device designed for that specific function. We are not referring to ad hoc, occasional, walk-up scanning but rather volume, paper-to-digital conversions that many users undertake.

The MFP may look tempting because it's already there, but could you be overloading it and monopolising a shared device? It is vital to examine the load balancing of the scanner function in the MFP and other needs across your department.

Wondering what can go wrong when you attempt a volume scan operation on an MFP? Frankly, quite a number of things can happen, few of them to the satisfaction of anyone:

Load imbalance of the MFP. If a department is running a large paper-to-digital document conversion, the MFP is monopolised by the scanning project for days and possibly weeks, creating a substantial inconvenience to the entire workgroup or department.

Duty Cycle is exceeded. The recommended print and copy duty cycles for MFPs range from 30,000 to 75,000 pages per month (approx. 1500 - 3750 pages per day). Scanning 5,000 pages in a day is not difficult to exceed in a document imaging project. Even at 90 ppm, this is less than 1 hour of active scanning. Exceeding the daily duty cycle often results in breakdowns, repair calls and the entire MFP going off-line, again inconveniencing the entire workgroup or department.

TCO goes up. Total Cost of Ownership proves to be a financial burden when an MFP is under frequent repair. Also ROI goes down. When the MFP is down, the company is not realising the benefit of its investment. Complaints from the CIO and CFO usually follow.

Office productivity drops. Your valuable MFP is suddenly of little use to anyone when it is being monopolised or is waiting for repair. Being a departmental device, the importance of load balancing makes sure that multiple departments and individuals can be productive with this shared tool.

RELIEVING THE BOTTLENECKS
Employing a dedicated scanner for large jobs will improve productivity and satisfaction as well as profitability and ROI for both office products. By strengthening your office with a single purpose scanner, you will relieve the undue burden of intensive scanning requirements on your MFP that will only create serious bottlenecks and added wear and tear. A production scanner like the Xerox DocuMate 4790 or 4799 will free up your MFP for printing and copying. A DocuMate scanner used in conjunction with a MFP will bring it extended profitability and productivity.

The Xerox DocuMate 4790 is a dependable scanner for large-volume and distributed scan projects with a daily duty cycle of up to 15,000 sheets with speeds up to 90 pages per minute. That's more than 2 ½ times the recommended throughput on the highest end MFP, all the time allowing the MFP more productive availability, freed from volume scanning jobs. This daily duty cycle allows customers to scan up to 200,000 sheets per month!

The Xerox DocuMate 4799 has a daily duty cycle of 40,000 sheets with speeds of 112 pages per minute (that's 800,000 sheets per month). Plus, it's equipped with a powerful software bundle that includes: Kofax VRS (Virtual ReScan) Professional, Nuance OmniPage Pro OCR and Visioneer Acuity.

WORRIED ABOUT YOUR IMAGE?
An additional benefit of using a dedicated scanner is that they come with Image Processing software such as Visioneer Acuity. Xerox recently announced that the award-winning DocuMate 5445 and 5460 scanners now include On-Board Acuity, a chip built-in to the scanners, that makes it faster for office workers to create clean, black and white images of their original documents. Functions such as cropping and removing blank pages are controlled by the chip rather than a connected PC, nearly doubling the scanning efficiency.

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