Historical Perspective
The paperless office was a publicist's slogan, meant to describe the office of the future. The basic idea was that office automation would make paper redundant for routine tasks such as record-keeping and bookkeeping. The idea came to prominence with the introduction of the personal computer. While the prediction of a PC on every desk was remarkably prescient, the 'paperless office' was less prophetic. Improvements in printers and photocopiers have made it much easier to reproduce documents in bulk, word-processing has deskilled secretarial work involved in writing those documents, the ease of communicating over email has greatly increased the amount of documents printed and the result is the proliferation of paper.
An early prediction of the paperless office was made in a Business Week article in 1975.[1]
Historical Paper Use
Contrary to the predictions of the paperless office, the introduction of computers increased paper use, with worldwide use of office paper more than doubling from 1980 to 2000.[2] This has been attributed to the increased ease of document production[2] – rather than needing to type a document up, one may easily print out multiple copies, email it to someone who then prints out a copy, print out a web page, and so forth. However, since about 2000, global use of office paper has leveled off and is now decreasing, which has been attributed to a generation shift,[2] younger people being less inclined to print out documents, and more inclined to read them on a screen.
Paperless Versus Traditional Office Philosophy
A traditional office consisted of paper-based filing systems, which may have included filing cabinets, folders, shelves, compactuses, microfiche systems, and drawing cabinets, all of which take up considerable space, requiring maintenance and equipment.
Meanwhile, a paperless office could simply consist of a desk, chair, and computer (with a modest amount of local or network storage) and the user could use and store all the information in digital form, including speech recognition and speech synthesis.
Metaphor and Philosophy
Paperless office is also a metaphor for the touting of new technology in terms of 'modernity' rather than its actual suitability to purpose. McIndoo; Todd (2009)"Paperless Office in Perspective A Document Management System for Today", pp. 5-11
The paperless office is now considered to be a philosophy to work with minimal paper, employ processes and systems that eliminate the need for paper altogether and to convert all forms of documentation to any digital form. The ideal is driven by a number of motivators including productivity gains, costs savings, space saving, the need to share information and reduced environmental impact.
Eliminating Paper Via Automation and Enterprise Forms Automation
The primary way to go paperless is to make use of a system or set of systems that work entirely online and without the need to print paper. Many examples of this are already in use by businesses including financial systems that replaced general ledgers, databases replacing index cards and rolodexes, email replacing type-written letters and faxes, the internet replacing reference books (e.g. phone books, vendor catalogs, encyclopedias, etc).[3]
Another way to eliminate paper is by automating paper-based processes that rely on forms, applications and surveys to capture and share data. This method is referred to as 'Enterprise Forms Automation' and is typically accomplished by using existing print-perfect documents in electronic format to allow for pre-filling of existing data, capturing data manually entered online by end-users, providing secure methods to submit form data to processing systems and digitally signing the electronic documents without printing.
The technologies that may be used with Enterprise Forms Automation include -
- Form Technology (e.g. Adobe PDF) - to create, display and interact with documents and forms
- Enterprise Forms Automation software - to integrate forms and form data with processing systems
- Databases - used to capture data for prefilling and processing documents
- Workflow platforms - used to route information, documents and direct process flow
- Digital signature solutions - used by end-users to digitally sign documents
- Web servers - used to host the process, receive submitted data, store documents and manage document rights
One of the main issues that has kept companies from adopting paperwork automation is capturing digital signatures in a cost-effective and compliant manner. With the E-Sign Act of 2000 Congress made it a law that a document cannot be rejected on the basis of an electronic signature and all companies must accept digital signatures on documents. Today there are sufficient cost-effective options available, including solutions that do not require end-users to purchase hardware or software.
Transforming Paper-Based Documents to Digital-Based Documents
Another key aspect of the paperless office philosophy is the conversion of paper documents, photos, engineering plans, microfiche and all the other paper based systems to digital documents. The technologies that may be used include -
Each of the technologies uses software that converts the raster formats (bitmaps) into other forms depending on need. Generally, they involve some form of image compression technology that produces smaller raster images or the use of optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the document to text. A combination of OCR and raster is used to enable search ability while maintaining the original form of the document.
An issue faced by those wishing to take the paperless philosophy to the limit has been copyright laws. These laws restrict the transfer of documents protected by copyright from one medium to another, such as converting books to electronic format.
An important step in the paper-to-digital conversion is the need to label and catalog the scanned documents. Such labeling allows the scanned documents to be searched. Some technologies have been developed to do this, but generally involves either human cataloging or automated indexing on the OCR document.
However, scanners and software continue to improve, with small, portable scanners that are able to scan doubled-sided A4 documents at around 30-35ppm to a raster format (typically TIFF fax 4 or PDF).
Issues In Taking Paper-Based Processes Paperless
- End-user adoption of the new process
- Cost savings to go paperless must be justifiable and reasonable
- How to leverage existing legacy systems, documents and processes
- Integration of systems from generating and prefilling documents to submitting and signing them digitally
Issues In Keeping Documents Digital
- Business procedures and/or government regulations. These often slow the adoption of exclusively electronic documents.
- The target readers' ability to receive and read the digital format.
- The target readers' ability to manipulate, i.e. highlight, annotate, or edit data in a digital format.
- The longevity of digital documents. Will they still be accessible to computer systems of the future?
Notes
References
- Sellen, Abigail J.; Harper, Richard H. R. (2001). The Myth of the Paperless Office. Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press. ISBN 0 262 19464 3.
- Discusses limitations of the paperless office, and the valuable role paper can play for knowledge workers.
- Concept of paperless office versus actual cost saving strategies, historical review
See also
