The City of Fellbach Upgrades Its Scanning Center with an InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1
The City of Fellbach in Baden-Württemberg originally set out simply to replace its aging document scanner for invoice processing – and in the process discovered the full range of possibilities offered by an InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1. The result: a professional scanning center for mailroom and invoice processing, a significantly improved foundation for further digitalizing incoming document workflows, and employees who simply cannot stop raving about it.
The Project at a Glance
Customer: City of Fellbach (Website)
Project: Professionalizing the Scanning Center
Scope: One document scanner SCAMAX® 3×1 with SCAMAXscan+ and service package
Challenges: Expert support by phone within 60 minutes
Project timeline: Three weeks from initial contact to test deployment
The Initial Situation:
Same-day scanning of invoices
In 2025, the City of Fellbach’s scanning center receives between 100 and 200 documents per day – primarily letters, invoices, time records, and carbon copies. To take advantage of early-payment discounts, the documents must be scanned the same day they arrive. For this purpose, the city uses a Fujitsu scanner. On average, the scan operator responsible for this work spends four hours scanning the daily document volume.
The Problem:
Unreliable scanner puts scanning targets at risk
The Fujitsu scanner is increasingly becoming a bottleneck in the invoice digitization process. One reason is that, when scanning at the required resolution of 300 dpi, its internal memory is full after just 25 documents and has to be cleared. Another is that some of the source documents are heavily wrinkled, repeatedly causing paper jams that have to be cleared manually. The scanner also fails completely from time to time, putting the city at risk of missing out on early-payment discounts.
“The old scanner simply slowed us down in our day-to-day work. We regularly ran into problems, especially with larger batches or difficult documents. That cost us time and was not sustainable in daily operations. We urgently needed a powerful scanner – also to be better prepared for future requirements such as TR-RESISCAN.”
(Jonathan Hof, Central Administration Office | Organization and Central Services)
The Requirements:
A professional, future-ready document scanner – and the best possible service
With the help of two document scanner sales specialists, Jonathan Hof develops a demanding requirements profile for the new document scanner. At the top of the list are reliability, ease of use, and image quality – criteria that ensure smooth operation and consistently high throughput.
Mixed batches, especially thin paper, and wrinkled documents must be processed without problems and without any loss of speed. Scanner operation should be simple and intuitive – both during regular use and when troubleshooting, cleaning, and maintenance are required. Additional specific functionality is also needed: the new scanner should automatically sort out separator sheets and use an integrated printer to mark scanned documents with a unique reference.
Jonathan Hof defines one particularly important requirement for service. In the event of a problem that cannot be resolved internally, he wants to be speaking with a manufacturer expert by phone within an hour.
“We had clearly defined requirements for the new document scanner: it had to run reliably, be easy to use, and handle difficult paper as well – because intake scanning is essential to the smooth operation of numerous downstream processes.”
(Jonathan Hof, Central Administration Office | Organization and Central Services)
The Search for a Scanner:
“Only InoTec can do that” – experts make a clear recommendation
With the requirements profile in hand, Jonathan Hof reaches out to several scanner manufacturers and systems integrators. Two out of three scanner manufacturers decline right away – only InoTec is immediately confident that it can meet all of the required criteria. The systems integrators contacted also unanimously recommend the same product: the document scanner InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1.
“The picture that emerged from my inquiries could not have been clearer: every manufacturer except InoTec said, ‘We can’t do that.’ And every systems integrator said, ‘Only InoTec can do that.’”
Jonathan Hof, Central Administration Office | Organization and Central Services
The Hardware Solution:
The middleweight champion among document scanners
The City of Fellbach chooses the most compact model in the InoTec SCAMAX® family: the InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1. This multi-award-winning desktop scanner, which is suitable for TR-RESISCAN-compliant scanning, leads its device class and is designed for daily throughput ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of documents. As the smaller sibling of the high-throughput SCAMAX® 6×1, it combines the 24/7 DNA and numerous premium features of the world’s leading desktop scanner with even more compact dimensions and more attractive conditions.
The SCAMAX® 3×1 scans in color and delivers outstanding image quality in accordance with ISO 19264-1 Level B and FADGI 3-Star. Its gentle belt transport ensures that even challenging source documents are fed safely through the scanner, while the NoSCRATCH glass guides prevent failures caused by scratched rails. The scanner is operated via an 18 cm color touch display with an intuitive user interface and clear, easy-to-understand full-text messages. This makes the InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1 the highest-quality and most cost-efficient solution when excellent results, ease of use, and a long service life are among the most important selection criteria.
Trial Installation and Training:
“We’re not giving it back.”
Just two days after the first call with InoTec, a trial installation of the InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1 is arranged. Two weeks later, the scanner is delivered and installed, and within just a few hours the scanning staff is trained on the system. The City of Fellbach puts the SCAMAX® 3×1 through its paces for a total of six weeks before, fully convinced, awarding the contract. The scan operators, however, make up their minds after just a few days of trial operation: “We’re not giving it back,” says one employee – and she turns out to be right.
Customer Takeaway:
Happy employees, no stoppages, and just one double feed in 12 months: “There is no comparable product.”
One year after putting its InoTec SCAMAX® 3×1 into operation, the City of Fellbach is completely satisfied with its purchase decision – and the document scanner’s track record is remarkable: in 12 months of daily scanning operations, there has been just one double feed. As a result, the new document scanner has become a firm favorite among the staff.
“One scan operator told me that the SCAMAX® 3×1 was ‘the best gift anyone could have given our mailroom and invoice processing team.’ The scanner runs reliably and does exactly what we need it to do. We notice the difference clearly in our day-to-day work – fewer disruptions, less rework, and a much smoother overall process. For us, it was absolutely the right decision.”
Jonathan Hof, Central Administration Office | Organization and Central Services
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