Client Overview

The client is one of the largest water supply and treatment utilities in the UK. It collects and distributes 1 billion litres of water daily through thousands of kilometres of pipes to its 5.7 million clients. It runs more than 670 water treatment works and looks after 72, 000 acres of reservoirs and countryside.

Problem statement

The client had a critical need for automation in regression testing, a historically manual and resource-intensive operation which cost time, money and a loss in business benefit realisation.

Solution

A collaborative endeavour harnessed the expertise of multiple teams as part of the partnership. A scalable automation platform was created and implemented, initially focused on achieving full automation coverage in the client’s SAP and Billing spaces. The introduction of core regression packs streamlined testing processes and paved the way for faster and more frequent software releases.

Before improvement

Regression testing required a significant and resource-intensive effort resulting in longer release cycles at a 1-month interval.

After improvement

An initial estimation placed the ROI of this collaborative effort at £500, 000 over 5 years, driven by a 33% coverage in S/4 automation. A further £100, 000 investment pushed the ROI over £800, 000 and increased coverage to 50%.

Release cycles were shortened from 1-month intervals to 1-2 weeks.

Benefit to the client after implementation

The client is seeing a significant ROI estimated over 5 years, and has halved its release cycle duration.

Since the implementation of the Automation Framework, the client has continued to extend the number of regression scripts covered and further increase the benefits. Automated scripts are run regularly as part of scheduled testing and are incrementally maintained by the automation engineers working in Agile delivery teams.