Why & How to use OCR/ICR

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OCR - Optical Character Recognition is a process which replaces “manual” data entry. Saying it simply, we talk about process of recognition of individual characters, allowing us to convert the image of a document back into text format. How this is done depends on our particular needs, i.e. why we need an alphanumeric record of a document in addition to its image. OCR can be performed for the whole document or, we can select only certain sections or parts of the document.

Algorithms and procedures of this kind are known for quarter of a century already and were originally designed exclusively for recognition of printouts. Present-day systems, however, are also impressively capable of recognizing of handwriting. Such systems have become known as Intelligent Character Recognition - ICR, and can accomplish amazing results. Furthermore, the first systems for Document Content Recognition- DCR have been already announced. DCR systems are able to identify and understand (?!!!) the content of a specific document and to forward the data for processing as required or to a specific user and/or workgroup.

Each Imaging & Archiving System gets its real value and starts to contribute good results only after we provide efficient and controlled workflow. In practice, this means defining specific documents and establishing, so-called, Information Flow Schemes, or the ways in which documents circulate (flow) among the workgroups and users. By proper and systematic use of such tools, we may put up some kind of operating system to control the organization of tasks in business system. With the help of such system we can then perform, not only scheduling of the tasks but, we can also control, co-ordinate and adjust each stage of the work process among individual users and/or workgroups.

Special program tools can be used to expand workflow into a system of Form Processing, or document processing, which has proven to be very useful for information systems in which scanned documents are the basic data source ( for instance, in payment of invoices, order processing and the like). By using such a system we can achieve the highest level of automation of office tasks and document management. In such cases OCR or ICR systems are essential, and the choice of compatible interacting system elements requires special care, since these subsystems must work well together. In this way we can completely automate the performance of various tasks and processes, depending of course on the way a certain business system operates. Throughout the world, direct processing of scanned documents has been most effective for banks, insurance companies and payment systems in general.

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