At the pharmaceutical company Astra, tough demands are placed on documentation dealing with R & D. This information represents an enormous amount of money, and the various authorities require that documentation be accessible for decades. After having evaluated a number of systems, Astra Draco has selected the specially designed processor known as Ralip Scan-IT for image analysis and storage on CD-ROM disks.

The research company Astra Draco had been searching for a system that would guarantee safe and reliable scanning of documents since 1993, but found nothing satisfactory on the market.
“Existing systems were closed, hard to handle, and difficult to integrate into our IT environment,” says Stefan Olsson, who works with system development at Astra Draco. “They seemed more suited to standardized forms for insurance companies, banks, etc.”
The company is one of five research companies in the Astra Group and has about 1,000 employees. The entire Group has about 18,000 employees around the world, with a turnover of US$ 5 billion.

Extensive document volumes
Some 100,000 to 150,000 documents are produced at Astra Draco every year, the equivalent of hundreds and hundreds of binders. These documents cover everything from R&D papers to medical histories and reports from clinical studies.
The company went to work evaluating scanners from various manufacturers, but failed to find any suitable for the job.
"It was primarily a problem getting sufficient high
quality during scanning, while, at the same time, the equipment was supposed to be easy to operate."
The scanners that were available at the time all had to be adjusted manually from one document to the next, if the quality of the paper varied. This is similar to common copying machines that require different settings for light and dark. Astra Draco therefore began its own attempt at developing a system for scanning and storage.

Collaboration in development
“We came into contact with Ralip, where our problem was understood, and we carried out a preliminary study together,” says Stefan Olsson.
“This joint research project resulted in our development of the processor card Ralip Scan-IT, earlier called Smartscan, for high-quality scanning,” says Magnus Dahl, who has accumulated 10 years of experience in the field. He heads the R&D department at Ralip.
The card automatically recognizes the quality of individual documents during scanning, and automatically carries out optimal adjustments. In OCR mode, the contents are automatically analyzed for indexing and subsequent word searching.

Specially designed processor
During the spring of 1994, Astra Draco and Ralip began to put together a scanning system. One year later, one of the two systems was in operation. Two additional systems were installed during the summer of 1997.
The central components of the Ralip Scan-IT circuit card, which works with the Windows OS on PCs, consists of a specially designed processor for image analysis and to work with operating memories up to 64 megabytes.

The scanning of a document entails three different operations:
* Capturing
* Management
* File/Archive Storage

“The Ralip Scan-It gives us the quality we were looking for,”says Stefan Olsson. “At the same time, the system is easy to operate, has a high production rate, and is cost-effective.”

Open image standard
Document storage is designed around an open image standard, TIFF, which means that the user ‘owns’ the information and does not run the risk of ending up in the hands of a particular supplier, being compelled to use his equipment only.
The processing of a document after scanning is vital to Astra. It consists of two parts: short-term storage in a data-base system or long-term archive storage on CD-ROM disks.
“The information must be accessible for company employees electronically, and it must be easy to store,” says Stefan Olsson.

Very stringent demands
The authorities in Europe as well as the United States place severe demands on the storage of pharmaceutical documents. Required storage periods span more than 50 years. At the same time, they increasingly stipulate that reports and documentation be supplied electronically.
“CD-ROM disks represent the best storage means so far,” says Magnus Dahl.
A single CD disk will hold from 20,000 to 30,000 letter-size pages, which corresponds to about 100 2-inch-thick binders, or over 16 feet of shelf space.
“Our entire annual archive requirements now fit on about five disks that can easily be read,” says Stefan Olsson.

Photo Caption
All research documentation at the pharmaceutical company Astra Draco is scanned in with high quality using the Ralip Scan-IT, a specially designed processor card.