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From the Nov 14, 2011 edition
MAIN STREET
Technology supplants paper-pushers
By Kelly L. Anderson
PBN Staff Writer
PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
SHARPER IMAGE: AMS Imaging CEO James E. McKenney bought the company in 2008 when its founder retired. The company specializes in digitizing paper documents.
The quickly evolving world of technology keeps James E. McKenney’s company shuffling “paperwork” so other companies don’t have to.
McKenney is CEO of AMS Imaging, a paper-management business that scans paperwork for more than 400 businesses throughout New England, New York and other states. They also sell the software that their clients need to work with the data they receive.
And they do it with only 50 employees.
He estimates that they will have scanned 15 million pages by the end of the year and he expects that number to climb to 18 million next year, partly due to developing technology that makes it possible to once again scan microfilm.
That means that the company has come full circle.
When it was started in 1971 under Jim Fiore, it used microfilm to copy documents for other companies. In the late 1980s, Fiore had the foresight to know that microfilm had a short shelf life in the fast-changing technology world, McKenney said. He bought the company from Fiore in 2008 when Fiore retired.
“So he made the jump and started training people in software instead,” McKenney explained.
That makes the company one of the first in New England to implement document-management software, McKenney said.
“Then two things began to change, software began to improve and the cost of data storage just began to plummet, so it made these systems have a very high return on investment solutions because you no longer had to print, copy or mail paper,” McKenney said. “You could share it by e-mail or users could access it directly from their PCs.”
Companies that seek AMS Imaging’s services are businesses that might want to stop storing all of their human-resources documents or any other contracts. The papers, or files, are taken to the Warwick production facility and scanned on high-speed, digital scanners. Then they are returned with an electronic file, possibly on CD or through the software AMS sold the company.
Another update in technology now allows AMS to integrate a company’s various files in various formats.
When the company began it was primarily working with paper, now it combines paper, e-mails, text messages, word documents and various other formats.
“It’s about content, so it really helps companies get all that varying content into one file,” McKenney said.
And that streamlining for the companies means a quick turnaround on investments. The payback is usually less than a year, even on the large systems, he said. A $500 million company may have a software system costing about $150,000. The companies pay for the system, then they pay for AMS Imaging’s scanning side. The software can range from $25,000 up to million-dollar systems, McKenney said.
Then as software once again began to evolve, they moved to a “capture, store, retrieve” system, where software began having features to route the paper around the company. That’s what is called workflow.
For example, in a company’s accounts-payable department, a purchase order is issued, an invoice comes in and a packing list comes in. Typically, an accounts-payables person has to look for that paperwork to come in and then file it.
“Our software will capture those documents at the point of entry,” McKenney said “It will recognize that same [order] number.”
That allows the software to tell which documents are related to the approval order and routes the file to the appropriate person.
“So one of the ways that this software generates a high return on investment in an accounts-payable department, is reducing the number of people to be filing and keying and chasing documents – [and ensuring] the companies get quick-pay discounts,” McKenney said.
The day the invoice comes in the company can submit a check request and get the payment out. That same up-to-date type of technology is why AMS Imaging has seen a slight upturn on what was left of its dwindling microfilm work.
Within the last year and a half AMS began getting more business through the old New England libraries that still had their original microfilm readers.
That’s because there’s a new microfilm reader that sits on a desktop, connects to a computer and allows text searches.
“All of a sudden there’s a lot of interest in microfilm, it’s really odd,” McKenney said. “In some ways it never went away. It’s a very small part of the business, but it is out there.”
•COMPANY PROFILE
AMS Imaging LLC
OWNERS: James E. McKenney, CEO
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Paper and document management
LOCATION: 2670 Warwick Ave., Warwick
EMPLOYEES: 50
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1971
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