Thank You, 2011!

2011 is wrapping up and it has been another prosperous year for Statco! Our data entry, indexing, data-capture and document scanning operations continue to expand into new service offerings for our clients, both old and new.

USA Training (www.usatraining.com), one of our longest-standing clients, celebrated their 30th anniversary this year. Statco is honored to have provided our services to them for 15 of those years! Congratulations to USA Training for their success, we look forward to our continued partnership in the years to come!

The University of California-San Francisco (www.ucsf.edu) and The University of Texas-Austin (www.utexas.edu) have expanded their use of Statco’s survey data-capture services in 2011. This year our survey processing for government and university research organizations grew substantially! Statco has provided data-capture solutions for researchers for over 50 years and we understand the goals of these clients. Our services allow our clients to meet their grant reporting and delivery requirements on-time and under budget!

This year we welcome Academy Sports + Outdoors (www.academy.com) and Whole Foods Market (www.wholefoods.com) to our growing list of clients. They will benefit from our accurate data-capture and timely processing of their customer contact information, which allows them the ability to establish communication with their customers quicker.

Cookies in the oven and U.S. students receive millions for special school projects

This fall students across the country raised millions of dollars for school sponsored programs through a unique fundraising program — selling ready to bake cookie dough. Statco was very pleased to provide the data processing support needed to process orders from students for Otis Spunkmeyer’s cookie dough and other products.

Statco provided support in preparing and reviewing the order forms for data entry, order processing, document scanning, producing statistical reports and information for student awards. With all this, school event sponsors were able to access and receive order reports to help them easily pick up the student’s orders on distribution day. Also, sponsors received statistical report documents through an on-line document management system.

Between September and November the program covered 450+ elementary, middle, high school fundraising events for various PTA, PTO, athletic, music and service organizations.  Over 58,000 students participated in these school sponsored events and they raised over $2.8 million for their organization’s projects.

Statco processed all order forms within 24 hours of receipt and delivered product order transaction files to Otis Spunkmeyer’s supply chain system electronically – the same day. Both sales forces for the school sponsors and Otis Spunkmeyer received order form images, detailed and summary statistical reports in 48 hours via a web-based document management system.

Otis Spunkmeyer and Statco are excited about the results of the fall 2010 fundraising event season for all the participating schools and students. We anticipate continued success for the Spring and Fall 2011 seasons. For more information on how your service organization can benefit from Otis Spunkmeyer products visit their fundraising page. If you like to see how Statco might help solve some data processing requirements of your company, please see our web site.

Data Capture, Data Entry, Data Conversion, Data Collection – Are these services all the same?

Some of the most fulfilling moments at the office for me are conversations I have with people about their data processing projects. Even after 22 years of talking with clients and prospects, I still enjoy giving advice and solving their challenges through lively discussions. Many times I receive calls from prospects which start out like this…

Prospect: “Hi – I have a need for data – capture, err.. data – entry ,,ummm data –conver-well… if I describe what I have, can you help me with what service I need?

Me: “Why of course, I would be happy to help you!”

Prospect: ” I have this paper form and it has a bunch of handwritten information that I want in a database.”

Me: “Terrific, let’s talk about your project and see which data processes and technology might best suit your data capture and conversion project”

The terms Data Capture, Data Entry, Data Conversion and Data Collection are used interchangeably and basically address the same result - transfer information from one media form to another. However, we often associate different processes and technology with different terms.

The following are not meant to be absolute definitions of these terms, just a way to think about the term and the related technology and processes behind them:

· Data Capture – a device reads information from one media form and transports it to another media form. Examples are bar code reader, paper scanners using OCR (optical character recognition) technology transferring text information to data files.

· Data Entry – the manual typing information from one media form to another. Examples are people looking at a paper document or scanned image of a document and typing the text into a data file.

· Data Collection – is the process of gathering information and delivering to a media form. It is similar to Data Capture, but often has a manual process to it since marking or handwriting text onto a form or recording device might be part of the information transport process.

The terms Media Conversion and Data Conversion are also often used interchangeably, which can be confusing.

· Usually, Media Conversion is the process of converting information files directly from one media form to another without interpolation or conversion of the information inside the file being transferred. Some examples are converting VCR tape video files to DVD disk files OR using a hardware technology and software processes to read diskettes and transfer data files to CD-Rom disks.

· While, Data Conversion refers to the process used to read information from the media and when applying a set of rules interprets and changes or replaces the information. Examples are converting a date from August 13, 2009 to 08/13/2009 or 2009/08/13 or a name from “Joseph E. Jones” to “Jones, Joseph E.”

Understanding these terms in more detail may help you when describing your next “data” processing project.

Why is “peak period” processing an important concept to recognize for an organization?

Just as a company would evaluate whether to buy or rent equipment, a similar decision should be made for staffing or outsourcing. Many companies look at their business cycle over the year but neglect the monthly cycle. If a company is going to use a piece of equipment everyday, then buying makes sense, but if they only use it 5-10 days each month, renting would be the better choice. For years, professional efficiency management consultants have helped businesses with these decisions and the results are often very beneficial for the bottom line.

Some companies are fortunate to have talented, trained and qualified staff that can serve in multiple types of job assignments and perform, but for many firms “smartsourcing” or “peak period sourcing” during these times is a better approach. Staff utilization will improve, a consistent level of service during peak periods is maintained and costs are lowered as a result of sourcing these processes during the monthly business cycle.

How might smartsourcing or peak period sourcing work for your business? Here’s a scenario:

A manufacturer receives 8,000 invoices per month from suppliers. In order to take advantage of payment discounts on 6,000 of these invoices, the business has only 10 days to make payment. To meet this kind of deadline (including mailing, review and payment scheduling) all the information needs to be entered into the accounts payable system within 3 days from receipt. While regular trained clerical staff can enter most of the normal pay term invoices through the month,  this “peak period” occurs once a week twice a month due to the way suppliers invoice. During these times someone else must enter 3,000 invoices over a three day period. If you use other trained staff to enter invoices in a timely, accurate manner for only 6 days each month, what are those employees qualified to do for the rest of the month? Probably not invoice data entry.

In tough economic times, like the current business climate, it’s important to make the most of your staff and budget. Peak period sourcing or smartsourcing may be the best way for your company to efficiently meet project deadlines.

What does STATCO do and just what IS a data processing “service bureau”?

I am asked this a lot so I thought this should be my first blog topic.

Since 1959 STATCO has provided data capture and document imaging services. The technology we use has changed through the years but the service remains the same; digitizing information for the first time. Whether the information is captured from hand-written paper forms, survey instruments or file documents, data is transcribed and converted into prescribed fields and organized into databases. These databases are delivered in various formats designed to plug into a customer’s information management system for transaction processing or statistical analysis.

The paper documents we convert into digital image format can be almost any size and quantity. Document imaging services include document preparation and organization, scanning, indexing and formatting into PDF, TIFF and other digital file formats. Optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR) and bar code recognition technologies are used to assist in the digital data conversion process. Where automated recognition technology is not possible manual data entry is used to index the document information.

In the early days of computer system use during in the 1960s and 1970s only a select few organizations could afford to purchase and operate a computer system. It was not uncommon for a larger company to rent computer time or services to a smaller firm who needed computing services but lacked the resources to purchase and maintain a computer system of their own. In the beginning banks, universities and very large corporations would “lend”  or “host” computing power on a “time-sharing” basis to those who needed computational services. The time these host organizations shared was always after their own computer processing tasks were complete. It was not unusual for a computer time-sharing service customer to wait an entire month before receiving the results of their processed information from the host. This lead to the computer “service bureau”, a company designed from the beginning to provide computing services to companies who required more timely computing services. Early on these new computer service host companies became bureaus or divisions inside the same time-sharing host bank or company. Occasionally computer service bureaus grew from a completely new entrepreneurial venture, as was the case for STATCO.