Driving National Gas’ independence through Digital Asset Management transformation

Capgemini helped National Gas to unlock its future as a separate business by collaborating with partners to modernise its asset management system – replacing legacy system Ellipse with industry-leading IBM Maximo.

Client Challenges:

While undertaking a two-year separation programme from National Grid Group, National Gas had regulatory and strategic business commitments to deliver its complex Digital Asset Management (DAM) transformation programme.

Solution:

Capgemini led the replacement of National Gas’ legacy asset management system Ellipse with industry-leading Maximo, integrated with 12 different systems. Collaborating with more than 26 organisations to migrate 10 million+ safety-critical records to the new system.

Benefits:

• Helped National Gas to forge its own path as a separate company.
• Unlocked the ability to embrace the energy transition as National Gas invests heavily in the future of hydrogen.
• Confidence and a blueprint in future large-scale transformative delivery.

A transformation programme with many moving parts

National Gas is Britain’s national gas network, responsible for 7,760km of high-pressure pipe providing secure energy to power the country, achieve net zero, and maintain our industrial competitiveness. They transport gas throughout Great Britain, repair and maintain gas pipelines, and manage the meters that allow power stations, businesses and millions of homes to access the energy they need. They are also leading the way in transforming our national gas network for a clean energy future by developing our infrastructure to transport hydrogen and carbon dioxide across the country.

While undertaking a two-year separation programme from National Grid, National Gas had made regulatory and business plan commitments for fundamental improvements to its digital capability. The largest and most complex of this regulatory portfolio – the Digital Asset Management (DAM) programme – involved the controlled migration of millions of records across 13 systems and adoption of a new set of integrated processes. It would also enable National Gas to forge its own path as a separate company.

National Gas worked with Capgemini to deliver the DAM transformation as its programme partner, with IBM as its delivery partner.

The programme had three core components:

• Replacing legacy asset management system Ellipse with industry-leading system Maximo.
• Migrating all geospatial data from one Geospatial Information System (GIS) from one instance of ArcGIS to another.
• Migrating all critical policy and safety documentation from OpenText to SharePoint Online.

Capgemini’s key responsibilities included programme partner leadership and coordination, business change, design management, cutover, user acceptance testing, and training design and delivery.

The programme integrated the three core systems with 12 other systems through principle-based design governance, detailed planning, and comprehensive and transparent testing to ensure that all systems and supporting processes worked as planned.

This was a highly intricate endeavour in which Capgemini and National Gas collaborated with no fewer than 26 other organisations in the supplier network – in total, more than 200 individuals. Previous upgrades to Ellipse had caused considerable issues to operational capability for National Gas, so it was imperative for this team to deliver DAM efficiently, timely, and absolutely seamlessly.

A masterclass in collaboration

With a mammoth task to accomplish, National Gas needed to rely on their partners to minimise risk in a very safety-conscious environment. Capgemini leaned into its USP – an end-to-end approach to transformation – to unite the supplier ecosystem and deliver just that.

Travelling to the far ends of the UK to be on site at National Gas’ operational sites – Capgemini built relationships across the business through the appointment of Lead Superusers. These superusers were responsible for management of business impact assessments, ensuring maximum alignment with the business, and co-ordination of testing, and supporting training.

Agreeing design, programme, and governance principles was fundamental to withstanding the shocks and surprises of a two-year separation programme and 18-month transformation programme running concurrently. Capgemini hosted monthly offsite collaboration sessions with the National Gas, IBM, and programme teams to align on upcoming challenges and agree how to approach them. In weekly sessions with each organisation who would play a part in the cutover, the partners ran through said approach – detailing actions needed and any change on the horizon. Doing this repeatedly, with full transparency, built trust and belief across the team.

A comprehensive cutover runbook and six months of planning and rehearsal sessions ensured every partner, and every person, knew their responsibilities for the “big weekend”. This created a safe space for transparent discussions on actions, problems, and drove fact-based clarity. When the time came, everybody was happy to give the go-ahead and during the cutover, the delivery partners were able to give each team an objective view of any problems, how to solve them, and the help needed to achieve a successful go live.

Unlocking the future for National Gas

National Gas had just one imperative for the DAM project – it must be delivered on time with minimum business disruption. The programme partners delivered on their original cutover date, absorbing all the challenges of the changing separation landscape through their ability to articulate the mission clearly, and incorporate ideas and solutions from everyone involved. After migrating more than 10 million records, only four were incorrect (and these were fixed over the go-live weekend).

The transformation programme delivered key benefits for wider society and the environment:

• Energy security – with geopolitical conflict driving a new reliance on gas, the network operator can serve the UK and continental gas stores at full capacity.
• Energy transition – National Gas is investing heavily in the future of hydrogen through their Project Union initiative. Asset management is a vital part of this future.
• Bill reduction – ultimately, both mean a reduction in cost for gas consumers.

And for National Gas specifically, it helped unlock:

• Their future as a separate business.
• The ability to embrace the energy transition.
• Their confidence and a blueprint in large-scale transformative delivery.
• A new standard for delivery.
• A framework of methods, collateral, and templates, for example a one-page synthesis of the entire programme architecture, and release plan scope summary – still used today. This singular overview stopped time-wasting discussion among partners; with everybody clear on architecture, tasks, timescales, and decision-making.

This project was special. The combined team achieved something incredibly complex, on time, in a way that minimised risk to the business, still with a smile on the team’s faces. Each organisation recognised and valued the massive contribution of individuals, regardless of role. And through it, the team forged real, genuine relationships.

Other key statistics:

• Core programme team of 15 onshore, and 60 offshore.
• 15 systems in scope (including the three core systems), all integrated successfully.
• Two external audits undertaken to validate the programme’s approach and progress.
• Over 1,000 user acceptance tests completed, with testers drawn from across the business, including >50 Superusers, led by five Lead Superusers.
• Rolled out to and provided early life support to 934 Maximo, 804 SharePoint and 580 GIS users.
• Delivered an extensive training programme for almost 1,000 employees across the UK with options for onsite in-person classroom and web-based training.

“Collaboration was the heart of this transformation. Given the number of organisations and individuals involved, for everything to have run so smoothly is nothing short of extraordinary. Capgemini was at the heart of enabling this collaboration and successful transformation as our Programme Partner for the DAM Programme. As a business, we’re now in a stronger position to build a clean energy future for the UK.”  

Rich Murphy, CIO, National Gas