Located on the southern end of Vancouver Island, the City of Langford is one of the fastest-growing communities in British Columbia, Canada. Its relatively mild climate and enticing environment have created a housing boom as families discover what a great place Langford is to live. However, the rising population generates challenges for Langford's management and administration teams."One of the side effects we experienced with this rapid growth was an increasing flood of documents here at City Hall," said Mike Palmer, the City's Information Systems Administrator. "For example, building permits, development applications and land-use reports - the more we grow, the more inundated we get with paper." Langford's management team already was aware that coping with the barrage of paperwork would demand efficient document management processes. However, the existing system was proving to be unsuitable for the task, and was rapidly becoming overwhelmed with the growing volume of hardcopy information. Langford initially attempted to expand an existing departmental document imaging system city-wide. But that system didn?t meet the City's requirements. "Unfortunately, it required far too many steps to make it really efficient. It was extremely time-consuming to stack and collate the scanned documents, and then save them in multiple formats," said Grace Ostan, Langford's Data Imaging Technician. "In addition, we were severely limited by the number of sheets of paper the software and equipment could handle at any one time, which made everything slow and labor intensive." Multifunction solution "We conducted an evaluation of potential solutions and when we looked at HP's high-volume multifunction printing devices, it was immediately clear that they were the answer to our problems," Palmer said. "We initially installed two HP LaserJet 9000mfp series devices, together with HP AutoStore software for document capture and automated routing, and Microsoft SharePoint® Portal Server for document management. It proved to be a very easy solution to implement, and we began to see benefits right away." Langford's primary multifunction device - an HP LaserJet 9055mfp at City Hall - annually produces about 250,000 copy pages, handles around 100,000 print jobs, and scans 50,000 pages. An HP LaserJet 9000mfp installed at the Fire Department handles similar tasks, and an HP LaserJet 4345mfp has been added just to keep up with growth. "With the new system in place, we are able to scan and process documents much faster than we ever could before. We also can scan multiple documents in the same batch, and the multifunction devices let us feed 100 sheets of paper at a time, which is double what we could process before," Ostan said. ?By using HP AutoStore software, we can sort and index documents automatically with simple barcode separators. Once scanned, each document goes through an optical character recognition process, where it's converted into an Adobe Acrobat® 'PDF' file with searchable text. The process is automatic and the user doesn?t have to do a thing once a document is loaded." Trina Cruikshank, Planning Assistant for the City said, "The new system dramatically streamlines the process of filing documents and retrieving them for City staff members and the public." " The HP LaserJet 9000mfp devices have made everything much easier," she said. "The scanned files go right into SharePoint where they are very easy to access. If a Building Inspector needs to look at a permit application, they can pull it up instantly instead of having to hunt through stacks of files." The HP LaserJet multifunction devices also integrate tightly with third-party solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. The City used SharePoint software to index every document in its files, encompassing almost 200,000 documents and two million pages of text. Members of the City staff instantly access information they need - rezoning applications, for example - using their desktop PCs, without the time-wasting physical searching required by the previous system. Smart and efficient "A key task for us is invoice approval. In the past, invoices would go around the office in a file folder to be approved manually. With the HP AutoStore software, we can automatically scan all invoices and electronically approve them using SharePoint Portal Server," Palmer said. "What used to take days or weeks, can now be completed within 24 hours, and vendors get paid that much faster." Furthermore, deploying HP multifunction devices allows Langford to save money by eliminating stand-alone copiers, scanners and printers. "As leases come due, we will phase out our photocopiers and replace them completely with these machines," Ternent said. "Additionally, we've been able to free up a large amount of floor space, through the use of electronic filing versus physical storage. That equates to savings in our physical plant of $90,000 of office space that we'd otherwise have to purchase." "The HP multifunction devices were easy to install," according to Palmer. "They also have been extremely reliable, allowing the City to deploy IT resources on other critical business projects. Staff productivity improved because the devices fold, staple and collate documents; deliver high quality photocopying; and streamline the scanning process for document management." "By implementing HP LaserJet 9000mfp series devices and HP AutoStore software, the City of Langford has been able to save an incredible amount of time and resources related to hardcopy information," Ternent said. "This document management solution has proved to be far and away the best fit for our needs, and it can scale with the City's rapid growth."
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