District heating: enhancing operational processes through SSE.
CASE STUDY
Convergence of existing billing systems through the adoption of a single solution integrated within a complex application landscape, connected with Salesforce and SAP FI-CAx.
Where: Italy
Challenge
A2A, a leading group in the Italian energy services sector, manages Heating and District Heating services (through 'A2A Calore e Servizi') in the cities of Brescia, Milan, Bergamo, Cremona, and in major Italian public administrations. A2A needed to centralize its billing services, optimize existing application solutions, and improve operational processes.
Approach
To meet the client’s needs, we at Engineering and FdL involved experts in Heating and District Heating process management, along with professionals with deep expertise in system integration for complex projects. The organization into four consecutive and progressive streams ensured service continuity, compliance with contractual billing deadlines, and effective integration with Salesforce CRM solutions, SAP FI-Cax Credit, and HP Metering Sides. Ongoing and consistent collaboration between teams enabled the achievement of quality objectives within the planned project timeline.
Solution
For each of the four project streams, a specific software release was planned, including gap analysis activities to identify and implement additional functionalities in the SSE solution, data migration, and deployment in the production environment. The billable contract types covered District Heating services for Supply only, Supply and Plant Management in District Heating, and Heating Management. A package-driven approach was adopted, along with system integration activities to manage planned evolutions. Continuous AMS support ensured, after go-live, the technological updating of the application landscape and timely management of regulatory adjustments—such as technical quality, billing transparency, and reading quality—mandated by ARERA, even in the following years.
Results
32,000 billing points.
Compliance with national and regional regulations for District Heating.
Improvement of operational efficiency in managed processes.
