How microfilm scanning improved this client’s service

About the client

This housing association is one of the biggest in the UK, and manages over 36,000 homes and 80,000 tenants.

What they wanted

The client needed to digitise an archive of microfilm reels so it could respond quicker to enquiries about old documents.

Their microfilm archive included various building plans, contracts, tenancy agreements and general correspondence.

Their two ageing microfilm readers couldn’t cope with the backlog of retrieval requests. This meant it was taking two to three days for information to be found, reprinted and shared.

After meeting many prospective suppliers, they chose us.

What we did

First, we collected the 3,300 reels from two of the client’s offices. Then we offered a sample to the client.

The sampling process involved processing and showing the client the scanned images from 20 reels and the associated index information.

Once we agreed on the final specification, we started the microfilm scanning of their entire archive.

We captured the TIFF images and uploaded them into the online document management system, FreeDocs.

And to make sure they could find their information quickly and easily, we indexed the documents using their own filing system.

What they said

“Not being able to respond to queries in a timely fashion was becoming unbearable for our organisation. After all we pride ourselves on being responsive to our tenants needs.

“Storetec’s open and informative approach throughout the microfilm scanning was very refreshing. Queries involving our old documents and plans can now be handled immediately.”