NERC compliance can be very challenging for organizations big and small. We recently implemented the Karta NERC Compliance Management Solution for one of the largest utility companies in the Northeastern United States. Read on for what led up to the implementation and the impact it’s had on them.
Situation
One of our larger utility clients was using an older legacy system for reliability compliance (NERC). The system was not meeting their needs because of the following:
The custom-coded software was challenging to configure, change layouts and add data fields. Most changes required the customer to go back to the vendor, instead…making each change expensive and inconvenient. This meant that each change took time, was expensive and inconvenient.
Getting reports out of the system was challenging. The customer had to write SQL scripts in order to generate reports.
The system didn’t allow them to create custom workflows, which greatly limited their ability to automate the work.
It was difficult to create custom dashboards, so management lacked visibility into crucial information for decision making.
Solution
Following a one-day discovery and business requirement gathering process led by one of our consultants, it was obvious that the Karta NERC Compliance Management Solution together with the Archer IRM platform was a perfect fit for their requirements. Our solution met 100% of their needs including:
A library structure that allows them to catalogue business assets to applicable NERC requirements so they can easily filter based on areas of focus.
Intuitive user interface with NERC labels for easier navigation.
Workflows that allow their team to quickly assign tasks and assign ownership to individual team members. This replaced a cumbersome process of emailing people to delegate items and request updates.
Migrating all of their historical data into the new system.
A centralized reporting system, out of the box, where they can build custom views for each stakeholder group and see the status of issues and open tasks across the enterprise in real-time.
Delivery of Karta’s e-Learning (LMS) training solution also ensures end users knew how to use the system producing a very high level of user acceptance.
Archer’s code-free platform now gave them the flexibility to make changes in-house on their own schedule, as desired.
Outcome
This customer went from being frustrated by the constraints and shortcomings of their IRM system to having a solution that works really well for them. Users are happy and cross-function collaboration has increased as a result. The Karta NERC Compliance Management Solution together with Archer IRM platform solved all of the critical challenges that the customer faced with their legacy system. They told us that eliminating all of the old workarounds has rid them of a massive headache. Once the system was live and rolled out, the client returned to us for other engagements. Highly satisfied with the new deployment, they felt confident that Karta and the Archer IRM platform could handle other enterprise risk management requirements, so Karta has recently implemented other solution areas such as enterprise risk management, corporate compliance and NERC CIP compliance management. They’ve found enormous benefits from these solutions, and have been pleasantly surprised that they haven’t needed to hire additional staff to maintain the program; rather, it has saved them time and heightened their confidence in their compliance program.