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Scotia Gas Networks

Scotia hits the gas with Cohesive and IBM Maximo

Enterprise Asset Management system consolidation helps improve the efficiency of the engineering function and reduces existing customizations.

Summary

Cohesive’s expertise was called upon to consolidate multiple IBM Maximo systems for Scotia Gas Networks, which provides gas to over ten million customers in Scotland and the South of England, to improve the efficiency of its engineering function and reduce the existing customizations in place, with no disruption in service to over 2,000 users.

Solutions
Enterprise Asset Management

The Challenge

Scotia Gas Networks (SGN) provides gas to over ten million customers in Scotland and the South of England.  SGN was running two separate Maximo v6 instances alongside Syclo Mobile systems for New Connections and Front Office and had two legacy CRM systems.

The scope of this project was to replace the two CRM systems with one version of Maximo and then merge all three instances of Maximo into one of version 7.5.

A critical requirement was that there was to be no disruption of service to the users.  The solution supports over 1,000 Maximo users and 2,000 mobile users.

Our Solution

The solution was based on the upgrading and merging of three Maximo systems to version 7.5.05, providing a reduction in infrastructure and applications by consolidating the functionality down into one system, whilst keeping the interfaces to any existing systems.  The Syclo client was also upgraded, and this ensured that the validations in the mobile application and Maximo were both in alignment.  Within the Maximo upgrade, improvements were made by the conversion of Java customisations to standard functionality and the use of new 7.5.05 functionality.

Technical project management was also provided for the Maximo work, with the following distinct phases:

  • Design
  • Build
  • Test
  • Deploy

Each phase was managed under strict procedures following PRINCE2 guidelines and had gating criteria, which were approved in writing by the client before commencing the next phase. The deliverables from each phase included:

  • Existing procedures
  • Functional specifications
  • New working procedures
  • As-built documentation
  • Configured Maximo applications and integrations
  • Unit and Combined Integration Testing (CIT)
  • System testing (SIT)
  • User Acceptance Testing (UAT) support
  • Performance testing
  • Training and early life warranty support

The Client Benefits

The asset management system now supports the Front Office, New Connections and CRM streams of the business with the data sets from the pre-existing systems being merged, with the roles and responsibilities being altered to take into consideration the new functionality.

The main objective of the replacement project was to improve the efficiency of the engineering function at SGN and reduce the customisations in place. This was achieved by:

  • Merging the data sets into one database
  • Consolidating the business processes
  • Moving Java and other older functionality into Automation Scripts
  • Using New Maximo 7.5.05 functionality
  • Aligning the Maximo and Syclo validations
  • Providing enhanced infrastructure configurations