Diriger HUB - A Customer Case Study for our Enterprise Interoperability Platform
...by Greg L TowneThe Size and Complexity of Systems Interoperability didn’t matter
How the DirigerHUB System of Systems Solution solved a large Energy Corporation’s critical infrastructure management and associated regulatory obligations.
The Customer
Our customer is a large Government owned Corporation that provides the essential 24 x 7 power distribution and transmission capability within a state and serves 2.3 million customers in their region of operations. Their job is to build, maintain, and operate the traditional and renewable power sources for their Customers.
To future proof their network, there has always been a strong focus on their assets, the related Asset Master Data, and subsequent life cycle management in a timely and consistent manner.
The Situation was Time Critical and needed a Low-risk outcome
The Customer needed to upgrade its ERP system to make use of the enhancements, fixes and the dynamics within its innovative strategy and regulatory changes.
Key decisional constraints that needed to be considered as part of the ERP program
The ERP had various point-to-point integrations that would be impacted by the upgrade; these included critical infrastructure management interfaces for planning and scheduling asset inspections and ongoing management of a mobile work force
Contractual and regulatory obligations needed to be maintained. Therefore, a Low risk, limited down time, and a zero-user change impact was required between Mobile Work Force, Maintenance Scheduling/Planning, and the upgraded ERP
Additional requirement to enhance data management, reduce error recycling, and adding defects management within a high-availability environment
Changing out the Work Force Mobility (WFM) solution at the same time as the ERP upgrade was considered high risk; hence, time constraints were placed on any solution in order to not impact the ERP project’s critical path.
Also considered - Build v Buy and Lowering Technical Debt
System of Systems Benefit - Reduced Technical Debt
Better Data Quality, Better AI/ML Decision Making, Quantum Leaps in Productivity
DirigerHUB Technology
Data and Decision Validation via AI and ML
Workflow and Business Rules Engines
Decision-based Configurable UI/UX
OPEN API Standards
De-coupled Services
Secure Data Fabric
Cloud or On-premise cloud
OIIE Standards Footprint
Access Anywhere
Platform for Apps Development
Scalable Data Storage
Real-time Data Analytics
Connects to other ESB's and Integration Layers
Significantly shortens deployment effort and time
The Background that made the situation special and interesting
The Customer has significant asset volumes, a large internal and contractor work force, high transaction volumes, real-time constraints, and data accuracy needs that are required to meet its customer and regulatory requirements.
An indicative summary of the DirigerHUB mandate, key statistics and interoperability services to be provided are
Mandate
Provide a Low Risk platform for the interoperability of a Key Asset Works Management Regime that encompasses
Existing systems for Mobile Inspections
Existing systems for Works Planning and Scheduling
Upgraded ERP and EAM as Master Data Repository (Work Orders, Defects, Asset Updates, Pre and Post Photos, Work Status)
Key Statistics
Metric - Commentary
Number of Assets - Approximately 7 Million
Work Orders per Year - Approximately 2 Million
Inspections per year - Approximately 1.4 Million
Data Points per inspection - Between 100 - 150 per inspection or ~100 million data points per year
DirigerHUB Services Included - PaaS Infrastructure, Work Order Tasks (Updates, Reviews, Crews), Work Order Results, Pre and Post Photos, New Equipment, Defects, Audit UI/UX, Monitor-Control-Corrective UI/UX, AI/ML based Data Validation and Business Rules and Workflows
What Outcomes were agreed and achieved
The Customer looked at various options and decided to utilise the technology and services provided by Diriger and their interoperability platform DirigerHUB.
Various key capabilities and outcomes drove the Customer’s decisional aspects; especially
low risk and the reduced technical debt
speed of deployment and implementation
mechanism to delay replacement analysis for the legacy mobile inspection system
little to no impact on the ERP Project’s critical path
re-use of existing systems via addition to the system of systems concept
ease of interoperability and experience around current and new system APIs
use of AI/ML technology for data validation in order to reduce expensive error recycle
little to no impact on the User Community; other than improved data consistency
re-use of a capability no longer available in the upgrade ERP (known maintenance scheduling and planning functions)
ease of adoption of new capabilities provided in the upgraded ERP (Defects management)
option to deploy to an on-premises or cloud infrastructure
untangled the potential for monolithic, complex, heavy customisations and the tangle of point-to-point integrations that rely on external vendors to maintain
option to move or delay the decision inflection point and reduce technical debt, viz. utilise the DirigerHUB technology and methods to satisfy business requirements whilst negating potentially significant technology debt and further maintenance.