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

Client Challenges:

National Gas undertook a two-year separation program from National Grid Group, while at the same time fulfilling regulatory and strategic business commitments to deliver a complex digital asset management (DAM) transformation program.

Solution:

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

Benefits:

  • Helped National Gas 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 for future large-scale transformative delivery

A transformation program with many moving parts

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

While undertaking a two-year separation program 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) program – 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 program partner, with IBM as its delivery partner.

The program 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 leadership and coordination, business change, design management, cutover, user acceptance testing, and training design and delivery.

The program 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 endeavor in which Capgemini and National Gas collaborated with no fewer than 26 other organizations in the supplier network – in total, more than 200 individuals. Previous upgrades to Ellipse had caused considerable issues of operational capability for National Gas, so it was imperative for this team to deliver DAM efficiently and seamlessly.

A masterclass in collaboration

With a mammoth task to accomplish, National Gas needed to rely on partners to minimize risk in a very safety-conscious environment. Capgemini leaned into its core capabilities – an end-to-end approach to transformation – to unite the supplier ecosystem.

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, coordination of testing, and support for training.

Alignment on design and governance principles was fundamental to withstanding the shocks and surprises of the two-year separation and 18-month transformation running concurrently. Capgemini hosted monthly offsite collaboration sessions with National Gas, IBM, and program teams to align on upcoming challenges. In weekly sessions with each stakeholder, the partners ran through the actions needed and any changes 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 knew their responsibilities for the “big weekend” launch. This created a safe space for transparent discussions on actions and 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 gave each team an objective view of 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 partners delivered on their original cutover date, absorbing the challenges of the separation 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 program delivered key benefits for the 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 its Project Union initiative. Asset management is a vital part of this future.
  • Bill reduction: These factors deliver a reduction in cost for gas consumers.

And for National Gas specifically, it helped unlock:

  • Its future as a separate business
  • The ability to embrace the energy transition
  • Confidence and a blueprint in large-scale transformative delivery
  • A new standard for delivery
  • A framework of methods, collateral, and templates, including a one-page synthesis of the entire program architecture and a 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 minimized risk to the business, still with a smile on the team’s faces. Each organization recognized and valued the massive contribution of individuals, regardless of role. And through it, the team forged real, genuine relationships.

Other key statistics:

  • Core program team of 15 onshore and 60 offshore
  • 15 systems in scope (including the three core systems) were integrated successfully
  • Two external audits validated the program’s approach and progress
  • Over 1,000 user acceptance tests completed, with testers drawn from across the business, including more than 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 program 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 organizations 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 program partner. As a business, we’re now in a stronger position to build a clean energy future for the UK.”

Rich Murphy, CIO, National Gas