Developing a future vision for the intelligent use of asset data for the Queensland Government.
Advance Queensland’s goal is to realise the state’s vision for the future. The government has allocated $512 million to fund innovative programs, build natural advantages, and discover new solutions to old problems.
AssetFuture entered a competitive pitch with multiple government agencies and was selected to receive the Small Business Innovation Research grant to find innovative ways that the Queensland Government could manage its $270 billion portfolio into the future, and utilise the data to create value. The solution had to catalogue and analyse millions of assets, clearly format the information, and provide transparency across the entire government asset portfolio to plan work, combine resources, and simplify the management process.
Innovating State Asset Solutions
We combined our discovery work with our experience with other government agencies like TAFE, Premier and Cabinet, Health, and DET and used a design thinking methodology to list and meet the needs of users across government. In workshops with the Departments of Justice, Education, and Housing and Public Works, we understood, defined, and documented user needs, challenges and requirements.
We found differences in data storage, like naming convention and inputs and different methods of managing asset information. Departments lacked a consistent forecast of capital expenditure and operational expenditure, and so struggled to accurately allocate funding to each business department. Finally, the Departments needed transparency on their asset portfolios to plan major works, avoid clashes in resources, and save money by combining work on similar projects.
Steps to Asset Intelligence
We then assembled a roadmap of actions, enhancements, new tools, and future goals for a solution that will serve the entire government. The first steps are:
Standardised data entry with clear labels
An HTML reporting engine built to process data for all Queensland Government users
An automated scripting solution to find existing data gaps
A dashboard to access and interpret data
Mapping of the assets and their location
Data mapping to systems, including Ellipse and SAP
Development of a mobile app to gather data from all employee devices
Once the Queensland Government has built a usable database of asset data, it can find insights and make strategic decisions with new technologies like:
Usable Intelligence models
Application of Artificial Intelligence to asset degradation
Integration with Business Impact Modelling, which allows planning during new property construction
Connection to other tools like Power BI and Tableau
Future State
By following this roadmap, Queensland State Government will benefit from increased transparency across departments, which leads to savings in purchasing and procuring of work. It will also improve how the work happens by improving the planning and management of workflow. And most importantly, agencies can now combine maintenance and repair jobs, and plan and distribute them to smaller contractors in region, supporting job creation throughout regional Queensland.