Need For Software Testing In Utilities Sector

Even though the Energy and Utilities sector has been going through its own set of challenges over the last few years, some of the world-renowned surveys agencies such as IDC (International Data Corporation) predict that utilities will take on at least 40% of their earnings using new business models and services by 2018.

Since, the past few years it has been all about exploring fossil fuels and researching for alternative energy sources like biomass, wind, solar energy, geothermal, and hydro-power.

Technology for sure plays an important in the evolution phase, where digital technologies have been a strength of the Energy and Utility sector.

“As per a Report, Utility and Energy sector was supposed to grow from USD 1.81 Billion in the year 2016 to USD 3.41 Billion by the year 2021.

On most of the occasion’s growth drivers of the market include dynamic forecasting and load management, operational efficiency and risk mitigation, the government has increased initiatives for Advanced Metering Infrastructure.

The year 2015 was supposed to be the base year; 2016 – 2021 is the forecast period.

Radically, the software has been used to predict the future existence of assets. It helps in identifying the asset recognition of the factors behind their failure using real-time and historical data.”

At most opportunities provided by digital technologies are bringing in potential breaks, but facing tremendous challenges too. In recent years it has been seen that there is a significant shift in the energy sector. The focus is on the consumers and their convenience, and specific attention to make the experience more powerful and intimate. Digital technologies have been dealing with challenges such as increasing operational costs, resource inadequacy, regulatory compliance, and reaching out to new geographical areas. Most of the Energy companies are trying to find new and innovative ways to deal with these loopholes, and updating/modernizing their business for delivering enhanced quality services.

Role of IT and Software Quality Assurance in the Utilities and Energy sector:

Nowadays, almost all industries rely on data-driven decisions.

As far as utilities-based digital transformations are concerned, software testing and Quality Analyst plays a vital role in transforming utility products to acceptable end-user products.

Some Challenging Aspects of Testing Digital Implementation Are:

1. Integration services: It is a set of utilities, applications, designers, components, and services all wrapped up into one powerful software application suite.

2. Multi-channel interface: A system which is having multiple channels to communicate.

3. Data and Service orchestration: It signifies integrating two or more applications and services to automate a process, or synchronize data in real-time.

4. End-to-end workflows: It’s a flow that covers every stage in a particular process.

To test ‘SMACT’ items i.e. (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, and IoT), organizations need to shift to innovative approaches, methodologies, frameworks, and accelerators.

As far as the aspect of validation of various utility applications which consists of a bunch of interconnected devices, to provide a better technique to advance testing, both Omnichannel and multi-channel testing needs to be considered.

Testing is an important part and parcel of a complex domain such as utilities; the natural trend of testing based on requirements is no longer useful.

Now the current market requires skilled resources familiar with the utility domain and can test the unwritten rules along with end-to-end scenarios, covering the entire system involved in a Utility application.

To overcome such challenges Software testing and QA is a support to the utility sector.

We, at BugRaptors, it's always our priority to provide top-notch software testing services for Utilities sector by keeping in mind all the positive and negative scenarios.

Sharad Yadav

Sharad works as a Consultant QA at Bugraptors. He is having multidimensional skills with respect to Manual testing, Mobile application testing, Game testing, Compatibility testing, Smoke testing, Responsive Testing, Sanity testing and Regression testing. He is also having expertise in preparation, development and execution of Test cases, Test procedure specifications and Test summary reports etc.