When Paper Meets Digital

In many fleet of aircraft, paper can become a big issue. The endless transporting of paper between departments often causes delays and leaves a good deal of room for error. In addition, the storing of numerous documents and maintenance manuals can become an even bigger issue if operating out of several buildings or locations. Aero Union Corporation, a leading fixed wing aerial firefighting operator located at the Chico Municipal Airport in Northern California, found it was facing these same challenges.

Aero Union, also a provider of products and services for commercial and military aviation markets, including maintenance services, realized that the challenges it was facing were unnecessary. It sought out an effective way to address the more than 400 pounds of paper, such as maintenance manuals, checklists, work and parts orders, and many other documents often required to be stored within or around each aircraft. In seeking a solution, Aero Union was introduced to the eCopy ShareScan and eCopy Desktop systems.

Thinking digitally
In the early ’90s Ed Schmid, the CEO and founder of eCopy, was in search of a new technology worthy of investment. He witnessed the increasing use of computers and email in the workplace and at the same time saw desks covered in paper and people struggling to manage it all. Schmid thought a product like ShareScan would be an effective way to bridge the gap between paper and digital communications. This idea led to a product that allowed users to scan a paper document and send it through the internal network as an email to a person within that same network.

With a rise in the use of the Internet this original product evolved into what today is called ShareScan. The ShareScan now offers the ability to send scanned documents to anyone with an email address as well as retain documents electronically for edits. Bill Brikiatis, director of media and industry analyst relations, explains further. “We really bridge the gap between paper and electronic systems. eCopy was founded on the premise that paper will never completely go away. What we do is allow people to take information that is on paper and use it with their computer systems.”

eCopy software gives a digital copier the ability to turn paper documents into digital files, which can then be transferred among employees with the intranet or sent via the Internet.

eCopy use is so effortless it requires no training. Brikiatis explains, “One of the main reasons we have been so successful is that most of our customers find it extremely easy to use. It’s easier in most cases than using the copier itself, and staff rarely, if ever, gets trained on a copier. We try to design it and do usability testing so that a person can simply walk up to it and complete a task. In fact, when we are demonstrating a product at a tradeshow we start by handing people a piece of paper and letting them do it themselves.”

When using eCopy, a paper document is placed in the tray of the digital copier, followed by the selection of the eCopy option on the operations panel. It can then be scanned and sent to the user themselves, through a fax, or emailed. Email recipients can be selected at the copier from the same address book that they use for their PC email. All paper documents scanned are then converted into PDF (portable document format) files.

This technology was something that Aero Union decided to take advantage of, knowing it could improve its processes by going digital. Mark Hernandez, the director of finance, IT, and human resources at Aero Union, states that moving into a “paper meets digital” operation was done after reviewing the several systems available, but it was the eCopy system that stood apart because of its additional features. “The additional benefit was being able to take a document scanned, and add markups with eCopy Desktop. This led us to purchase eCopy rather than just a document scanning system.” Aero Union also enjoys the security provided by the system. In order to scan and send a document, users must enter a username and password before completing the task, a feature that meets FAA regulations.