Elia is a Belgian transmission system operator for high-voltage electricity, located in Brussels. It operates in Belgium and Germany. The company transmits electricity from generators to distribution system operators, which then supply SMEs and homes. Elia group employs
over 2.200 people.
In 2011, Elia was meeting problems with its inhouse software development. The specificities of Elia’s business did on one hand require specific tools adapted to Elia’s process regarding investigation of incidents on the grid, the parametrization of the low voltage equipment or the collect of data to be analyzed by specialists to implement the replacement and maintenance policies of the assets. On the other hand, the V-model methodology was not successful in such a specific environment where the knowledge gap between IT and business and the fast changing business needs were often too important.
Cream started to work with Elia on a Proof of concept regarding the creation in Agile of a tool to analyze the incidents and feed a database that would later help the experts to understand new incidents. Cream took also part in the web counterpart of the tool that allows field workers to directly work on the incidents, missions and recommendations introduced in the application by the experts in the back office. The tool also feeds a BI environment that allows an in-depth analysis of the grid and to report to the Assets Management board.
Since this project in Agile was a success for both IT and Business, Elia started in parallel new in-house digitalization projects Cream took an active part in. In addition to the business and functional analysis, the design and the deployment of the tools, Cream provided full process reviews across the impacted entities and stakeholders, gap analysis and the creations of the business cases to assess the continuous justification of the added value of the functionalities of the different tools. What an opportunity to help Elia to become an early adopter of Agile approach!
Today, Cream keeps on supporting Elia with a variety of projects from program management and cultural change management to setting-up a new business with UK through the Nemo Link project…