MidDel Consulting was approached by a Northwestern Power and Gas utility to assist in upgrading the OpenLink Endur Energy Trading and Risk Management (“ETRM”) system, from version fourteen (“v14”) to version seventeen (“v17”), amidst significant market volatility and with an aggressive delivery window required to beat the end-of-year blackout period for any system changes.
MidDel Consulting was able to create comprehensive test scripts, upgrade Endur to “v17,” beat the blackout deadline and provide critical system support during a challenging period of market volatility. The MidDel team started by hosting workshops with key stakeholders to outline business functional requirements. The team utilized the results to create test scripts required to validate system functionality and then ran the upgrade in a test environment and performed a smoke test of “v17” for a “Go/No Go” decision.
After the successful completion of the smoke test, the team refreshed the environment and conducted full front-to-back system testing using the client specific test scripts. The team then handed the environment over to the client to conduct user acceptance testing.
The team was able to complete testing and provide a “Go” decision prior to the December 1st cut-off date; having completed an Endur upgrade in less than three months!
The client successfully upgraded their Endur ETRM platform to “v17” in three months, while saving over five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) by achieving an aggressive plan and avoiding additional internal and external resource costs. The client is now well-positioned for their next upgrade: armed with comprehensive test plans designed to empower the users and make them self-sufficient for the next upgrade.
