NASHUA, NH---Sep 12, 2002 -- Murphy Farms, one of the nation's largest pork distributors, has achieved a significant return on investment by deploying the Canon and eCopy solution, to solve a vital paper flow problem and allow the company to focus on getting the more important issues resolved. eCopy, Inc. is a leading provider of products that transform paper documents into digital information. Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a subsidiary of Canon Inc. and a leader in networked digital imaging solutions. “We were sending these mega-page reports via fax or overnight delivery," explains Shelli Prindle, of the Ames, Iowa office. "But neither method was satisfactory. Overnight delivery was expensive, especially considering that reports often had to be marked up and re-sent a number of times between facilities. And the quality of faxes was unacceptable. Ten-point font numbers on a gigantic spreadsheet were just impossible to read with the fax technology we were using." Using the annotation and editing functions in eCopy Desktop, staff members could easily do all mark-ups and edits to scanned documents electronically. This eliminated the need to print out huge financial reports, annotate the paper copies, and re-scan them before sending them back to other facilities. The result was a dramatically better and more efficient process. The Canon/eCopy solution improved the document management process for Murphy Farms' Western Operations in other areas as well. Now, spreadsheets and other financial documents from the company's IBM AS400 system are immediately scanned. They can then be e-mailed or faxed to other facilities. This has led to an immediate 10% savings on overnight services with more savings to come in the future as the eCopy solution is used more frequently for additional tasks. However, a number of facilities still prefer to distribute and receive documents via fax. Here, the ability of eCopy ShareScan to leverage all of the advanced features of the Canon imageRUNNER line of copiers for scanning has made all the difference. With access to features including double-sided scanning, brightness, gray-scale imaging, 200, 300, 400, 600 dpi and more, users report that the small font numbers that had previously been all but illegible were coming across with crystal clarity when faxed via the Canon/eCopy solution. Storing and retrieving all of the financial documents from all of the facilities is also much more efficient, because it can all be done using the Canon/eCopy solution. "I used to cringe every week," says Prindle, "because I knew that all of the reports were coming back to me to keep at Western Division headquarters. We did have a scanner, but the process still involved paper documents in one or more steps. Now, once the printouts are scanned, everything can be done from either the copier or the desktop with NO additional printing involved. If I need to find a common document here and send it out to other offices, I can do it in no time ... without dealing with paper at all. It's an amazing time-saver." Other facilities within the company's Western Division have been so impressed with the performance and ease-of-use of the Canon/eCopy solution that a number of them are planning to include it in upcoming budget requests. The eCopy Suite of products, coupled with the high speed scanning capabilities of the Canon imageRUNNER networked office systems, enable any user in an organization to transform paper documents into information that is easily integrated into all commonly used business applications. Using eCopy, companies can provide shared access to high-speed scanners that connect to the company's e-mail and other networked enterprise applications for low-cost, easy, instantaneous distribution and management of electronic copies of paper documents.