70% of companies using document scanners report that MFPs are used for scanning in their organization.
Respondents using MFP scanners estimate their weekly average scan volume is greater than the weekly average scan volume reported for Workgroup scanners – The mean volume per scanner per week is estimated at 2,672 pages for MFP scanners and 1,892 pages for Workgroup scanners.
Many respondents (56%) estimate that their MFP scanning volume will increase – 31% estimate that their MFP scanning volume will stay the same, while only 13% estimate that volume will decrease.
The highest percentage of documents scanned on MFPs is for ad-hoc purposes (40% of documents). However, increasing numbers of users are scanning for more advanced applications such as records management (62% of users) and for business process applications (54% of users) – The percentages of documents scanned for records management and business process applications are not as high as for ad-hoc scanning, but the percentage of respondents who are broadening their usage of MFP scanning is significant.
Many respondents expect they will be scanning more documents to use as part of business processes – 40% of those that use MFPs for business-process applications report that their use of scanning to enable business processes will increase. 24% believe that they will increase the number of documents scanned so that data may be extracted from the documents and used as part of a business process. 33% believe that the volume of documents scanned for archiving, document management, and records management will increase.
Higher percentages of users who use single-function document scanners in addition to their MFPs scan for business-process applications than those who use only MFPs – Users with only MFPs tend to do a higher percentage of ad-hoc scanning (52% of documents) than those who also have distributed single-function scanners (34% of documents). More respondents who have both MFPs and single-function document scanners use the MFPs for records management (70% of users) than those who use only MFPs (44% of users). We therefore speculate that users who employ distributed single-function scanners may be more inclined to extend the applications they perform on distributed single-function scanners to their distributed MFP scanners as well.

For the near term, InfoTrends believes that MFP scanning will largely continue to be used for low-volume applications rather than high-volume applications, primarily because sharing a device with those who are copying and printing is not practical in a high-volume situation. It is likely that numerous small companies that wish to scan and have very little equipment will turn to MFPs in these situations, rather than buying a low-volume, single-function scanner. At the same time, many companies will still appreciate the capabilities that a single-function scanners bring to the office in terms of image quality, usability, and paper handling, and will opt for these devices. Single-function scanners are also beginning to be equipped with some of the same features as MFP scanning devices, such as large screen displays, networked (shared) capabilities, and application integration support. At any rate, we believe that scanning, whether it is from an MFP or scanning device, has acquired a significant role in the office environment.

This post originally appeared on the Document Imaging Blog. The Document Imaging Blog maintains the copyright for this article.