Case Studies
Object Oriented Consulting for an Energy Startup
Provide a web-based solution to offer energy information management capabilities.
The Challenge
This corporate "spin-off" was developed as an Internet-based energy management organization whose focus would be on the utilities and other energy providers, marketers, and consumers. Once formed, this "dot com" collaborated with its originating sister company which designs and manufactures energy measurement devices that electronically track interval usage data from utility gas and electric meters, and automatically upload that data to a central repository. With the present volatility of the energy markets and the growing uncertainty over energy deregulation, this technology for tracking energy consumption opens up a wide range of e-business possibilities for energy companies to leverage their field data and drive value back into their enterprise.
The task of this new company was to develop a hosted, web-based portal that would afford commercial and industrial energy users a means of accessing their natural gas and electric consumption data, and managing their usage and costs in a secure, user-friendly online environment. The intent was to provide a completely web-based solution to utilities and energy marketers who want to offer their customers the latest in energy information management capabilities and value-added services.
The Solution
Xede was selected to help with this start effort because of its exceptional technical and business capabilities combined with its deep knowledge of the energy industry. Xede helped this young, growing company redesign and implement its energy management portal to enable web-based administration of remotely read meter data.
Based on this effort, clients can use this web-based application to track all remotely read meters owned by their accounts while simultaneously monitoring market conditions. With this data, they can profile and analyze their usage, forecast demand, and address price and risk concerns directly from any browser. Easy-to-use online tools allow account managers to assign meters to various reporting groups and to chart usage by each according to their own preferences and data requirements. The portal also offers weather information commodity pricing and industry news. With the versatile, underlying application that Xede helped develop, utilities and energy marketers can now offer this product as a private-labeled portal to their customers.
Example Role: Object Technologist
One of Xede's key resources in delivering this solution served as an Object Technologist to provide front- to back-end technical expertise. Xede was responsible for designing, building and deploying the web-based portal solution. Xede played a key role in designing the database, analyzing and driving the development practices, implementing development controls and defining development standards for this initiative. The result was reduced application development time and enhanced quality of output. Using object-oriented Java-based development solutions like WebLogic, Java Server Pages, Enterprise Java Beans, and a process-driven systems development methodology, Xede helped design and build an application that is easy to maintain, support, and extend as needed.
