Micro Com Systems recently completed a two-year project for one of its largest and longest-running clients, a mining group involved in exploration, extraction and processing. With offices in many countries, managing paperwork and assets had become a considerable challenge. With a long and extensive offering of Vancouver scanning services, Micro Com was brought onboard for two purposes:
Over the years, much of the client’s growth occurred through mergers and acquisitions. Every time this happened, the company amassed significant amounts of additional paperwork. Many of these files were one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable. Moreover, while the records were important, they were susceptible to damage (and loss), required significant storage space, and were hard to catalogue and search.
Since this corporation had already used Micro Com’s Vancouver scanning services to convert files from 2010-2012, (consisting of 1.3 million letter/legal pages and 155K engineering drawings/maps) they came back for assistance in scanning another significant block of documents. In total, there were over 1800 banker-sized boxes of files, which contained approximately 2.3 million letter/legal pages and 266,000 drawings and maps, many of which were oversized (up to 8-10 feet in length) and would require specialized large format document scanning.
Besides document digitization and organization, this client had a few special requests. As previously mentioned, extensive subjective keyword extraction was required to create a comprehensive database, related to the scanned images. It was also requested that key data points be processed into an electronic post-it note and attached to specific pages within the PDF files.
An intricate document numbering schema needed to be developed to assist in tracking all documents throughout the conversion process. Quality checks were conducted on every page and map to ensure that the information was complete and suitably for scanned. Some of the types of media were old and challenging—materials such as waxy fax paper and onion skin tracing paper were sometimes used and required special handling. In a few cases, a bit of restoration was required prior to digitization.
To ensure all graphic documents were accurately replicated, equipment was regularly cleaned to prevent the dust and dirt from marring digitized copies. Special attention was taken to ensure final map scans were accurate and clean, as any flaws or marks could easily be mistaken for grid, boundary, or fault lines.
With their important paperwork safely digitized, our customer can confidently move forward in operations and growth with printable, easily shareable files of all important records. To learn more, about digitizing your company’s records and archives, contact Micro Com Systems in Burnaby at 604-872-6771.