Ajman Municipality & Planning Department, Ajman, United Arab Emirates: Virtual Asset Counting

Written answers to the questions

Ajman Municipality & Planning adopted virtual counting assets approach in 14^th February 2022 to improve the procedures of counting assets of the entity through utilizing 3D technology and artificial intelligence to create an integrated record of assets quantified around 32 thousand owned by the department and display an innovative 3D image of the assets to register, monitor and track the assets. A team was formulated led by the Director of the Financial Affairs Department in September 2021 to prepare a comprehensive study to analyze the traditional approach. Compared to the traditional method, the period of completing counting assets task is greatly reduced in terms of time, manpower and cost and made the process more efficient. In addition, the idea has brought both financial and non-financial benefits and is considered best practice in local government entities in Ajman city.

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The entity was adopting the traditional method of counting assets by borrowing employees from different departments to assist the Financial Affairs Department in completing the annual asset counting and planning to distribute, delegate and assign responsibilities. The process of field visits and preparing reports are also mandatory tasks that need to be completed. This process was time-consuming, costly, and not very efficient so it was necessary to search for approaches to perform a procedure that assists in monitoring large assets that the entity owns and uses. After conducting brainstorming sessions with stakeholders and analyzing reports, the team came up with the solution to adopt the technology of artificial intelligence (AI) as the best choice to develop a system. AI played an effective role in developing the system which benefits the entity in managing and following up the life cycle of the asset from its receipt to scrapping, hiring advanced technologies in the operations of managing the asset, and achieving the main target of the system which is applying virtual counting approach of assets and stores. Also, the proposed solution utilizes 3D technology to implement virtual reality reflection of the offices and assets. The team customized the system according to the entity's requirement to apply the virtual assets counting approach. All these aspects were prepared in a fully documented study and presented to a technology development company to develop the software which benefits the entity and assists in performing the required tasks. The system was launched in 2022 by integrating the system with the FAMS system to extract all the entity's asset’s locations, coding, categorizing (buildings, devices and equipment, vehicles, furniture and infrastructure), valuing, date of use, etc.  A workshop is conducted for all the concerned personnel in departments to explain the system, its functions, and the purpose of implementing the virtual assets counting approach at the end of the year. Also, a guide video presentation is shared with all employees using the system and approach that will be followed for counting. 

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After implementing the virtual asset counting at the end of the financial year 2022, the duration of completing the counting process was reduced from a month to 7 days, and the cost was reduced from 300k to 60k which indicates an 80% cost reduction from years 2021 to 2022. The required manpower to perform the counting procedure was reduced from 53 to 16 employees.

The system defines the condition of the asset from the beginning to the end of the year which assists in faster decision-making in handling damaged assets issues. This contributes to improving the KPI "ratio of damaged assets to total assets" from 2% to 4% which illustrates the efficiency of faster identification of damaged assets. This represents that the approach is efficient and cost-effective.

Developing the virtual assets counting system gained the department several nonfinancial advantages that increased the internal control over assets,  providing a QR code to indicate the assets and locations, facilitating the process of building maintenance for the concerned department, following up the asset maintenance process by adding maintenance data for each asset, following up the default life of the original, and facilitating the process of building maintenance for the concerned department.

Key Activities	Before	After	Interpretation
Manpower	53 employee	16 employee	Mean around 70% reduced in manpower
complain	5	0	100% decline in total complaints from 2021 to 2022.
Duration	1 month	7 days	The duration time reduced by 77%
incentive employee	300K	60K	indicates 80% cost reduction
improving the KPI	2%	4%	illustrates the efficiency of faster identification of damaged assets
Company cost	150k	0	indicates 100% company cost reduction