Complete digitalization of fixed assets management at Sii Poland – ambitious project staring the ERP system

Asset management is a process that involves many departments within a company, and coordinating it in an organization with almost 5 000 employees in 14 locations is quite a challenge. Thanks to great involvement of the ERP AX team, Sii Poland has introduced an innovative solution based on a flexible module of Microsoft Dynamics AX, enabling full digitalization of inventory of fixed assets with the use of bar code readers integrated with the ERP system.

From legal regulations point of view, the company’s tangible assets are referred to as fixed assets. In the case of an organization such as Sii Poland, it includes both office space equipment, computers and hardware, but also all types of licenses, telephones, fleet of company cars, as well as smaller technical accessories consisting of equipment for employees’ workplaces.

Managing them is a task for many organizational units within the company – including both accounting, administration and technical field support. Each of these units takes part in the process of accounting verification, assigning fixed assets to specific people and projects or, finally, reselling them.

– In our huge organization, the approach to the unified management of tens of thousands of fixed assets has become a necessity, as well as a big challenge. In previous years, this meant filling out hundreds of inventory sheets, but also the need to communicate with all employees in order to obtain information about fixed assets, including information about serial numbers, equipment models, etc. While completing the project goals, we centralized the complex management of the company’s assets in one tool, which is the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics AX – says Kinga Próchniak, Domain Leader/Team Manager at Sii Poland.

From inventory to comprehensive management of employee equipment

The initial idea to streamline the process was to create a functionality for the inventory of fixed assets, using the potential of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 system and the capabilities of QR code printers in the form of stickers and code readers. During the AS-IS analysis of business processes, the scope of required changes evolved into a much more complex solution.

– Writing new functionalities from scratch allowed to create a flexible module that can be used in other projects. The extensive scope included process changes, full digitalization of the inventory, the ability to identify the company’s assets using barcode scanners integrated with the ERP, creation of dedicated solutions to manage the operations and assignment of accessories and licenses, management of document and report and implementation of cost calculation logic – explains Małgorzata Wierzbowicz, Consultant working on the project.

– The extension of the scope of the project also allowed us to look at the inventory process in the long term, so that it is as friendly as possible also in the future. The project was successful thanks to the great involvement of experts participating in it – says Adam Rutkowski, Architect at Sii Poland.

The experts included architects, consultants, developers, testers, product owners on the IT side, but also members of the Business Intelligence and Infrastructure teams as well as PMs, analysts and stakeholders on the business side from eight departments.

– Creating a functionality that really touches so many areas of an organization’s operations and is isolated enough not to interfere with all the other processes that have been working properly for a long time is the biggest challenge in such large projects. The list of benefits of this particular project is long, but the ERP AX system has even more to offer when it comes to the fixed asset module. It can be a very interesting, gratifying process. However, we must stay focused on the goal, bearing in mind that together everything is supposed to work like a “Swiss watch” – explains Piotr Włoch, Senior Research and Development Engineer involved in the project.

The implemented solution allowed for faster and more efficient inventory of 11.5 thousand accessories, 27 thousand licenses assigned to users and devices, and 15.5 thousand other fixed assets.

– Finally, in addition to the successful inventory of fixed assets, we have provided a tool for comprehensive equipment management for almost 5 000 employees, . We now have the ability to manage transfers of fixed assets, licenses and accessories. Thanks to the change in the calculation of indirect costs for the equipment we have, we are able to analyze employee costs in detail – says Łukasz Osiński, Architect of the solution.

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