Situation
One of the world’s largest publicly listed utilities makes extensive use of remote transmission sites to connect millions of people safely, reliably and efficiently to the energy they use. Mindful that users’ energy needs would increase, the global leader sought to build a cutting-edge monitoring system that could identify and rectify transmission anomalies, support a mobile workforce, be cloud-ready, and reduce costs. The system should also help the company better understand, evaluate and calculate the gas parameters associated with transmission before sending that data to regulators.
Collaboration
Through extensive meetings with the utility and workshops, Wipro came to understand the importance of addressing both the leader’s technology demands and its user-experience desires. Wipro proposed a Liferay Digital Experience Platform built on the latest technology stack, with an intuitive user interface that would ensure ease of use by field teams. The new platform would debut in the UK, where multiple remote sites required enhanced monitoring.
This initiative would replace two applications, a remote-ware system and a GMIST portal, thus enabling more-efficient interface with remote sites and a significant reduction in platform-licensing expenses. Leveraging a single platform would also minimize any costs associated with server maintenance.
The new portal interfaced with remote sites to collect gas-quality data, processed it to calculate the gas parameters, and ensured that the data met regulatory requirements. In addition, the new system automatically determined the number of files ready to be processed for gas-parameter calculations. Meanwhile, an intuitive dashboard provided holistic graph- and report-based views of all current and historic data, improving managers’ understanding of the information and boosting their response times. The modular application also promoted reusability by enabling plug-and-play functionality across multiple projects.
Outcomes
The new system enabled the utility to gather enriched data in an uninterrupted flow from remote sites to the servers. As a result, the utility realized a 30% improvement in computing and displaying gas parameters, and faster calculations for regulatory compliance. The system also monitored assets regularly so the company could take preventive actions to avoid asset failure. The digital portal reduced the utility’s annual operational expenses by an average of £86,000 due to licensing costs, with a total projected savings of £430,000 over a five-year period. Easily transferred to the cloud, the platform’s mobility framework will allow the client to easily develop a mobile app in the future.