The All American Rejects cashed in on it. So has the Imaging Service Bureau industry. In fact, the American Rejects’ lines – “Just to waste my time with you. Tell me all that you’ve thrown away” – are quite apropos.

When I started VeBridge almost thirteen years ago, I was SHOCKED to find out what Service Bureaus across the country were throwing away. I was more shocked to find out that they either didn’t disclose this loss of content to their clients or, worse still, didn’t know they were destroying content. It is our industry’s dirty little secret. Let me explain.

The dirty deed is done on jobs that are partially duplex. If a job is all single-sided or all duplex, there’s not a problem. It’s the jobs where some percent of the content is double-sided. Clients don’t want to pay for, or receive the blank sides of the simplex pages. There are three common methods for Imaging Service Bureaus to process partial duplex jobs:

1.       During document preparation, a prepper looks at every page of a batch and manually flags duplex pages. Then, the scanner is set for simplex scanning, and the scan operator feeds the flagged pages back through the scanner to capture the back. Why this is a lousy solution: This adds labor cost and slows the scanning process, as the flags are removed and re-fed, thus adding even more cost.

2.       The scanner can be set to duplex and capture both sides of every page. This requires a manual post-process requiring an operator to review every page and delete the blank pages. Why this is a lousy solution: Although some of the post-process can be sped up through technology, it adds labor cost. Since this can be a tedious task, it is subject to human error.

3.       The capture software can be set to discard pages based on their size or other algorithms designed to determine if the page is actually blank. Why this is a lousy solution: The means by which the software decides is subjective and subject to the scanner settings, which can change over time. Every Service Bureau I have surveyed that uses this method sets an images size threshold of between 2,500 and 3,500 bytes. The problem is, in our studies, we have found content on pages as small as 800 bytes. So, although the blanks disappear, so does the content.

With any of these choices, the customer is getting a rotten deal.

“Great,” you say, “How am I going to deal with this little bombshell?” Easy, just ask a few questions. Ask your current, or prospective, vendor how they deal with those pesky blank pages in a partial duplex scan job. If they answer:

·         “We handle it in prep,” then turn on your heels and get out of there as fast as you can. Or,

·         “We do a manual post-process,” then run a little faster. Or,

·         “We have the software delete based on file size,” then run the fastest.

The dirty little secret is out. So, what should you do now? Pose the question. Your vendor certainly isn’t going to bring it up, and it’s not going to be in your contract. Take comfort in knowing that VeBridge geeks have conquered the problem, our customers love it, and that’s no secret!