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Foveonics a provider of on-demand Document Management Service wins a contract to box, transport, scan and store some 4,500 banker boxes of information totaling over 12 million images. This project allows T.C.O.J. to access customer records within seconds while saving roughly 5,000 square feet of premium office space. After the newly digitized files have been reviewed and approved by T.C.O.J.’s staff, the documents will be shredded saving TCOJ valuable office space and expense A major concern of T.C.O.J. was the ability to respond to customer requests in a timely manner while the documents were in Foveonics possession.
The solution was simple, TCOJ submitted customer request to FIT’s Records Storage / Retrieval System which tracks the files via bar code technology and forwards request onto a secure site within minutes. “Foveonics response time has been incredible. We couldn’t have envisioned a better partner for this conversion. We now have the ability to review a file within seconds providing better customer service for our clients.” explains Charles Ott of T.C.O.J.
The Recorder of Deeds requested several significant projects to be conducted. Starting with back file conversion and expanding to a Level 3 Electronic Filing Program.
In 2005, we installed the very first Level 3 Electronic Filing System within the State of Pennsylvania under the supervision of the Secretary of State’s Pilot Project. The focus was directed towards three major components making up a Level 3 Program:
- Submitting Company
- Notary of Public
- Portal -- County Recorder of Deeds Office and related systems
The tasks although complex were accomplished within a relatively short period of time -- utilizing our entire software development team and supported by our strategic partner Take Solutions.
As a result of this project, F.I.T. pursued the development of a E-Recording Portal, which can be utilized for a single county, regional group counties, interspersed group counties, or the entire 67 counties within PA.
In addition to the installation and support of the Level 3 Electronic Filing Program, the Recorder of Deeds required the image conversion of 6.0 million pages for land-related documents. The work had to be performed on site, due to the mission-critical documents required to be onsite during business hours. The documents, starting at year 1742, required several unique imaging services:
- 4.0 million were of all sizes, up to 11” x 17” with simple indexing
- 2.0 million were of all sizes, up to 8-1/2” x 14” with separate indexing pages that were also scanned in on our large format map/drawing scanner due to the larger size (15” x 18”). Once the index pages were scanned, we applied OCR technology to convert the image file to a full text word file and then 100% verified to insure accuracy. The full text file was then installed onto the existing database – populating the entire index fields for the 500,000 records.
- Installed all 6 million image files onto the Recorder’s Database, posting the image files and associated index fields onto the Internet – over 8,000 hits are currently being performed by the Recorder of Deeds’ Users.
Tom Murphy, the Recorder of Deeds, is now seeing more participation by his Customers. All of his physical books and records are removed from the Courthouse, stored offsite.
The State of Maryland manages its land records via a statewide land record management system for all of its counties. Its statewide system (called ELROI) was installed in 1992, while the records go back as far as the 1600s – all managed by the Maryland State Archives (MSA). F.I.T. is one of only five companies that are established to provide imaging and IT–related services for the State’s massive land records management for MSA. Of the five authorized service providers, we are the only company that has performed several pilot projects and unique imaging services for the state. Some of those projects are:
- Creation of a Relational Database for records prior to the State-Wide ELROI System
- Retirement of a serious Backlog situation for day-to-day land record filings – 13 counties
- Land Records Conversion of 19 million pages and their respective COTTS/Russell Indices
- Establishment of a Marriage License Kiosk workstation system
The creation of a relational database for pre-ELROI land records requires a highly technical solution, utilizing the latest technologies in imaging. It requires the translation of 1970-era data storage media into a parsing technology transfer. For those records that are not on any media storage solution, it required digital conversion of large format hardcopy indices (> 15” x 20”), then translating that TIFF digital file to ASCI format sparsed into proper field alignments consistent to the state-wide database file structure and directory path schema.
The State of Maryland was in a serious backlog situation regarding the official recording of land-related documents within its 21 counties -- Clerk’s Office. In most counties, the backlog of recordings was at least four months and in some situations, over seven months.
Foveonics Imaging Technologies and its partner – TPC, Inc. provided a solution to address the State of Maryland’s most serious of situations. We provided staffing persons for the laborious tasks of recording – indexing, scanning, and “mail-backs”. The staff was trained on numerous exceptions for each county, along with objectives of exceeding these tasks quicker and with more accuracy than present county staff.
F.I.T. exceeded the specifications and requirements. Our staff performed indexing of deeds and mortgages at a rate of 300 per day/person. Scanning documents were at a rate of 10% to 15% higher than the objective rate. The staff performed these services onsite and offsite, during business and non-business hours.
Although a relatively small project, the History Department needed extremely old and delicate microfilm to be scanned and converted to digital format onto CDs. The images on the microfilm were dated to original documents in the 1400’s. Our operations determined the only true method to completely satisfy this customer.
This was to utilize the NextScan Microfilm Scanner. The scanner represents the latest in microfilm scanning technology, utilizing the Schneider Glass System, along with its sophisticated CCD Area Array Imager. The microfilm was all converted in grayscale and then compressed utilizing the latest in compression algorithm technology – JPEG 2000. The results were spectacular. Every fine line and script was captured, much to the delight of the History Department for John Hopkins University.
The Prothonotary of Chester County was experiencing problems from a lack of storage space. F.I.T. was contracted to perform an image conversion consisting of seven years of civil court records totaling 1.4 million images. Each civil case contained unique records and reports that needed to be identified and separated by barcode sheets. Once digitized and properly identified, Foveonics posted the images onto our web-hosting site for easy access and availability. F.I.T then provided image archive services to properly backup the digital image files – in compliance with state regulations.
This project was provided ahead of schedule, within the projected budget amount.