Fixed Assets Management with Business Intelligence
Our client, an important global chemical manufacturer, was facing an issue at Information Technology division due to a bad computer´s inventory administration. There were several sites with different amounts of computers and each one with its own characteristics such as type, model, operating system and peripherals.
Management wanted to have information to be able to perform equipment renovations and apply guarantees properly according to their policies. They also wanted to make operating system upgrades when required. The problem was that they did not have confidence in the data they had on the equipment, nor did they have a way to visualize it for decision making. This resulted in cases of unknowing equipment theft or having it on "standby" when it could be used. In addition, high costs were incurred for having equipment out of warranty time. On top of that, there was computer equipment that exceeded by far the 4-year maximum age policy.
Our team partnered with IT to work on the solution, and applying our Six Sigma methodology, we identified that there were two main opportunities: one on the way data was updated and the second in the way data was available for the managers.
Our team of experts developed a robust automated process. A database was created and all the administration was done using Power Apps. For managers, a dashboard was created in Power BI which made the computer´s inventory data, visual, integrated, and accurate.
Graphics showed the number of computers by type, its peripherals, its status and its operating systems. Guarantees were calculated properly. All with the option to filter by site and date.
The combined effort resulted on having a real time dashboard where Management can visualize all computers inventory data, very easy to filter in different useful ways -as much as Management imagination can create-, generating very valuable information for decision making. The operating team was committed to update computers status in the tool as soon as changes happened, reducing the time they invested to generate management reports and the use of additional resources. With some checking points, management could value if the data made sense and, in a short time, they trusted on it.