Quality Assurance- The Path To Digital Transformation In Energy Sector

What is Quality?

Quality is exceptionally complex to describe, and it is stated clearly: “Fit for use or purpose”. It is all about meeting the customer needs and expectations concerning usability, design, reliability, durability, & price of the product.

What is Assurance?

Assurance is a confident statement of trust in a good or service. It is the certainty of a service or product, which might work well. It guarantees that the product operates according to requirements or conditions without complications.

Quality Assurance in Software Testing

Software testing quality assurance is characterized as a process for guaranteeing a company’s software products or services to customers. Quality assurance focuses on optimizing software creation and making it reliable and effective in compliance with energy and utilities software testing experts. Quality assurance is generally referred to as QA testing.

Importance of Quality Assurance

Quality assurance helps a company develop products and services that meet customers’ needs, expectations, and demands. It provides high-quality goods that create consumer interest and loyalty. Quality assurance requirements and protocols are established for eliminating consumer failures until they occur.

Quality Assurance Functions

There are five core functions of quality assurance:

• Technology transfer: This feature requires the reception and review of the product development document and test and error results. The products are distributed, tested, and accepted
• Validation: This is the master validation plan for the whole system. The test requirements for product and process validation are accepted. A validation strategy is carried out for resource preparation.
• Documentation: This feature monitors document distribution and archiving. Any changes in a document will be made through the proper process of change control. All kinds of papers are approved.
• Ensure product quality
• Plans for improved quality

The utility industry is the most vulnerable to instability and disorder. The loss of infrastructure results in a natural catastrophe or calamity, leading to major disruption usually occurring as daily life comes to a halt. Over the years, the industry has focused on designing new technologies to improve consumer resilience and reliability. Another phase in the initiative is to shift into digital transformation.

Digital transformation in utilities industry has three major fields in which data, financial reporting, and social & configuration control play a key role. Hence, they’re consumer networks, innovative infrastructure provision, and the role that the digital system plays in disrupting business models. The services industry guarantees uninterrupted consumer services by exploiting digital opportunity and optimizes its value chain by enhancing efficiency and profitability.

In terms of optimized plant servicing, replacement parts management, fuel management, enhanced strategic thinking, preventive and corrective maintenance, and improved operation and management, McKinsey predicted that digital optimization in the utility sector would raise revenues by 20% to 30% using business planning. The sector’s unpredictability is the greatest difficulty for service providers. The industry leaders should be actively seeking the best outcomes for all stakeholders by regularly updating their government policy and legislation and adjusting rates.

Functionalities in Depth

Digital transformation in utilities industry uses smart meters and smart grids, digital productivity energy and utilities software testing experts, and back-office process automation to counter market potential hazards and promote consumer streamlined services. It demands that they be updated in real-time on any transition and interpret the real-time data to make appropriate decisions.

Energy and utilities software solutions are also now engaging in the digitalization of their back-office operations, including accounting, billing management, service monitoring, account management, and the levelling up of grid networks. A stable program that monitors and executes under heavy load conditions needs to keep track of this wide scale of operations successfully.

While digital transformation in energy sector is a major objective to help service their clients, they need to promote apps’ quality management to ensure that their digital activities deliver their desired results. The digital innovation gives E&U businesses fresh possibilities on a range of fronts. The scan of utility insecurity preserves the facility of on-site evaluation to ensure the applications work correctly and operate in all respects. 

Also Read: What Is The Scope For Digital Transformation?

Examples of how QA supports the digital initiatives of the utility industry

Cloud performance testing ensures that a major supplier of home heating and convenience systems can be competitively scaled. A leading supplier of home heating and comfort solutions with cutting-edge HVAC, furnace, and air conditioning systems needs to demonstrate optimum efficiency for their goods and customer-facing applications.

1. By enforcing a cloud-enabled load generation strategy and a robust & maintainable performance test automation framework, the client was able to achieve:

• Hardware performance improvement of 25%
• Server performance optimization and simultaneous user scalability 20%
• 30% server response time improvement
• Overall cost reduction of research results

1. Enhanced test coverage across all modules for the biggest private energy and utilities handling service provider
2. The automation of test procedures across all applications modules was one of the major independent suppliers of facilities across the Northwest and Mid-Atlantic areas in the United States.
3. Since there was no predefined test automation process or framework in place, there would be serious data validation challenges resulting in frequent changes or updates in requirements. The business applied an innovative strategy of progress and needed support in its team for test automation of its complicated heritage application to overcome the punch of QA tools.
4. After optimizing the test processes with the execution of a test automation framework, checklists, guidelines, best practices, and reusable templates, the supplier can utilize the importance of:

• Automation coverage enhancement for all device modules 60 per cent
• Reduction of a test run time by 30 per cent
• Checking automation reduction of 75 per cent
• 50% boost in application efficiency by diligent monitoring

Conclusion

Quality Assurance is for ensuring that the produced product is safe to be used. For this purpose, procedures and criteria which need to be changed regularly could be adopted by the Organization. It focuses mainly on the product/service standard we provide to clients before or after app delivery. Digital transformation in energy sector maintains the requirements for reliable product development or manufacture. A system of quality insurance will increase the trust and reputation of a company’s clients and will improve working processes and performance.

Also Read: Quality Assurance Process In Healthcare