Ireland’s Department of Transport’s new imaging system streamlines access to media information.
Ireland’s Department of Transport was
formed in 2002 to manage the country’s transportation systems and roadways.
Officially, it is charged with providing "efficient and effective delivery of a
sustainable, appropriately regulated, safe and integrated transport system."
A key success factor for the agency,
however, is tracking news media reports relating to the country’s transportation
systems, investigating the reports and making sure any problems reported are
dealt with quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, monitoring the various
paper-based transportation-related news articles and other sources of
information was becoming increasingly difficult, especially for agency personnel
located in offices around the country.
The agency decided to build a
centralized imaging database to hold the transportation-related news media with
the idea that every agency employee could then have quick, searchable access to
the information from a Web browser.
After considering a variety of
solutions, the agency hit on ScanSoft’s Capture Development System v12. The
ScanSoft SDK allowed the agency to build an efficient scanning and OCR system
with automated indexing that could be used as a resource for the entire
department.
Using the Capture Development System,
agency employees scan articles into the system. Each article is recognized by
the system and indexed appropriately, said Brian Moyne, project manager at the
department. And not only is it indexed, but pertinent information – such as the
headline, date, publication and other searchable information – is automatically
"zoned" and placed in the proper field within the agency’s imaging database. The
result is fast and efficient, he said, since the agency doesn’t have to do any
clean up or manual indexing.
In fact, the whole system streamlines
the agency’s workflow, since the database is available to all employees via an
easy-to-use Web interface.
"After examining a number of solutions,
it became clear that ScanSoft was the only company with the speed, accuracy and
formatting requirements to be able to create this application," Moyne said.
"It’s let us virtually eliminate the need for manual indexing or data entry,
truly enabling us to maximize our return on investment."
For more information, visit Ireland’s
Department of Transport here or ScanSoft’s Capture
Develoment System page here.
