NJ Transit taps IKON/eCopy system for document workflow

Computerworld - New Jersey's public transportation corporation, NJ Transit, has selected an IKON/eCopy system to address its document workflow needs.
The system, which includes eCopy ScanStation OP, an eCopy document imaging and distribution system and Ricoh Co. multifunction copy machines for scanning, copying and printing documents, will help NJ Transit save time, money and paper by converting its paper-based system into an electronic system, said Richard Price, director of materials management at NJ Transit.
"We are like most major corporations -- we have the need to request materials and services on a continuing basis to support our rail, bus and light rail systems, and we generate quite a few of these things every year," Price said. "And prior to a year ago, we were doing everything via paper and sending those requisitions through the regular interoffice mail."
Before implementing the system from IKON Office Solutions Inc. and eCopy Inc., it could take days for requisitions and check requests to get to their destination, Price said. Creating an electronic requisition form using Microsoft Outlook allowed the agency to immediately track requisitions or check requests without risking the loss associated with paper documents, he said.
"We used MS Outlook and [first] we created an [electronic] requisition form," Price said. "But the problem we had was how do we get the paper documentation -- specifications and all the different types of proposals that are coming to us in different forms in paper -- how do we get those quickly into an electronic form so we can attach it to the electronic requisition and move it through the system?"
The agency decided to take advantage of the scanning ability of its Ricoh copy machines to scan the necessary documents into the appropriate corporate systems, Price said.
"We then went to IKON and... eventually we ended up with the eCopy solution," he said. "IKON came in and installed the system and we then ran a pilot for a while. We connected our copy machine to our corporate network and now the scan process requires the individual to log in with a password to network. Then the system knows who is logged on and it puts the scanned documentation into their private directories so that they can then retrieve the documentation and go from there with what they plan to do."
As a result of the new document management system, NJ Transit expects to move approximately 24,000 paper documents a year from its interoffice mail into its electronic workflow, Price said.
NJ Transit is now looking into thesystem to replace other paper-based workflows, he said. "As we've started using this, we recognized there were other needs within the company and we started sharing the information with our technology user groups. We are seeing ideas pop up in different areas because it makes it simple and fast to get documents in electronic form. The [NJ Transit] Police Department has expressed some interest in using it to move paper documents that get generated at morning meetings out to officers in the field through electronic means scanning those documents and attaching them to e-mails. The key here is the speed of scan; it makes [the process] much simpler."