Case Studies

Industries we provide for at Afor

Afor has worked for many clients in New Zealand, focussing on our key specialty of Test Automation and Technical Testing.  We have also won a lot of work in the supporting services such as Test Management, Strategy and Planning, Release Management and DevOps.

Case study examples

Below are some case study examples with some industry leadings clients we have worked with. If you would wish to review more case studies specific to your industry please get in touch for an information pack today.

Case Study 1: QA Review & implementation
Super funds Client

Our client provides a data management platform for fund managers, superannuation funds and sovereign wealth funds. Afor were engaged to undertake a QA review of the delivery process end to end and implement changes that would remove technical debt and increase ability to deliver new quality features.

Challenge

Our client’s key customer were performing User Acceptance Testing of our client’s fortnightly delivery of software and finding a significant number of critical and major defects. Major defects had to be fixed, which was slowing down the next release, and for those not fixed, technical debt was building up.

Our client wanted to improve quality and speed of new feature delivery, remove technical debt and impress their customer with as close to zero defects as possible. From this foundation they wanted to expand their client base.

Solution

Afor were engaged, for an initial 4 weeks, to do a QA review of the delivery process starting with the requirements gathering and architecture, through to the development, QA and release processes.

After 21 interviews with staff Afor presented to the client leadership team a report with 10 top improvements based on criticality which included recommendations such as:

  • Development of an agreed Test and Automation Strategy

  • Our client’s Test Team to engage closely with the customers test team, improving communications and expectations for removing technical debt

  • Improve development standards and knowledge sharing with testers

  • Improve Architecture and Design documentation to fill the knowledge gap on the basic system

Afor were then engaged for a further 5 months to provide leadership and help our client implement all 10 recommendations

Results

  • Within 6 weeks of the extended engagement the number of defects being found by the customer were drastically reduced and by the end of the engagement we had reached the zero major defect target.

  • Release process improved.

  • Relationships between teams improved.

  • Uplift in capability of the test team.

  • Automation and Development team working well together and finding efficiencies in common code libraries and databases.

  • Key customer were happier with quality and could move forwards faster with new features they wanted.

  • Key product was improved, opening up the door to sales with new clients.

Case Study 2: Test Automation
Agriculture client

Our client is the largest company and produces dairy products which they sell globally. Afor were engaged to provide an automated testing solution across multiple platforms primarily in their digital marketing, farmer facing tools and global sales space.

Challenge

Our client planned to improve speed to market for dairy products, increase their client base and streamline their IT delivery process. This involved new feature development via Agile delivery and integration of several systems including SalesForce, ServiceNow, and SAP. There needed to be no compromise on quality for new features whilst also ensuring a stable system via regression testing of already delivered features. The challenge was to move away from manual testing and automate a regression suite as well automating new features and integration of new systems.

Solution

Afor were engaged to provide experts in the test automation architecture and engineer space to create an automated testing process which was to be implemented across multiple digital platforms and fit with the agile sprint delivery processes across multiple programmes and projects.

Afor were tasked with ensuring a common test automation platform, coding standards and testing methodology with clear reporting and ongoing process improvement.

Results

Afor have been engaged on these projects for over 6 years now and have grown a team of dedicated resources for our client.

Below are some of the key results:

  • Set up the Afor automation framework, providing common libraries of code, coding standards and clear and concise reporting

  • Creation of automated regression tests, both within sprints as part of the development lifecycle and retrospectively to provide additional coverage

  • Creation of new feature tests which can be added to the regression suite when required.

  • Suite of integration tests including browser based scenarios, web services and mobile applications

  • Work in an agile sprint delivery environment with scrum teams

  • Regression suite covers hundreds of hour’s worth of manual testing within a few hours and is used for all production releases through the use of DEVOPS pipelines

  • The previous automation in place took more than a day to run with under a 1000 scenarios and was unreliable, the new solution provides more than 10,000 scenarios across multiple areas within the business and is able to run within a few hours.

Case Study 3: Test automation
Energy client

Our client is an electricity and gas supplier, providing services to retail and business alike. Afor were engaged to provide automated testing services on their new SAAS products, which were replacing legacy systems. Salesforce was being implemented, to allow our client to provide a faster and more reliable service.

Challenge

Our client were implementing new services, to allow their customers a smoother path to signing up and to allow existing customers to be able to evaluate their usage and billing information more easily. Salesforce was chosen to provide the services required, to manage the customer experience using cases and opportunities. Integration with credit check systems, billing, provisioning and other services was provided using Mulesoft integration.

Solution

Our client once relied on a homegrown automation solution for its web front ends, but it faced limitations. This bespoke framework lacked the flexibility to integrate seamlessly with web services using modern service definitions like OpenAPI specs or RAML. Crafting automation for each web service was a labour-intensive process, burdened with high maintenance costs and susceptibility to errors over time.

We put in place the Afor framework, a game-changer in our quest for efficiency. With its ability to leverage service definitions and data models, we unlocked a new realm of features in automation. By using specification-based automation by design, this allowed the team to redirect their efforts towards new features rather than maintenance.

A web front end was being built, to allow new customers to sign up and go through an automatic credit check before being accepted as a provisional customer. The forms used were built in Salesforce’s communities portal and integrated using Mulesoft to a third party credit check service. The automation which we put in place was able to utilise the Mulesoft services, to allow full coverage of the credit check system and sign up process.

Results

  • Afor's solution not only facilitated our client consistent delivery of new features but also ensured that their products maintained an exceptional standard of quality throughout the entire build lifecycle.

  • By implementing Afor's framework, our client could confidently introduce enhancements every fortnight, enriching their offerings with fresh functionalities while safeguarding against the potential disruption or malfunction of existing features.

  • This seamless integration of new features without compromising on stability or reliability exemplifies the efficacy of Afor's approach in empowering businesses like our client to innovate rapidly while upholding stringent quality standards.

  • As a result, our client was able to stay ahead in a competitive market landscape, continuously meeting and exceeding customer expectations with each iterative release, thereby solidifying their position as a leader in their industry.

Case Study 4: Release & Test Management
Agriculture Client

Our client is NZ’s largest company and produces dairy products which they sell globally. Afor were engaged to provide Release and Test Management resources and processes across multiple projects and platforms in their digital marketing space.

Challenge

Afor had built an automation suite across our clients Digital platforms and projects and they now wanted to streamline the Release process across multiple environments and automate deployments and reporting as much as possible.

Solution

Afor were engaged to provide experts in the Release and Test Management space. These resources worked closely with the client to enable smooth deployment, based on Sprint readiness goals, through the Dev, Test, Staging and Production environments.

RTM’s collaborated together to create common processes that would maximise efficiency and ensure quality releases by validating that stories and features were completed and tested fully within the sprint window.

Their remit is to ensure Production releases are on time and of quality, and that where quality is an issue, Production would be protected, as agreed with the business.

Results

Afor have been engaged in this release process for over 3 years now and have grown a team of dedicated resources for our client.

Below are some of the key results:

  • RTM’s are now a standard role across all the clients digital programmes and projects.

  • Deployments are faster and of higher quality as the RTM’s ensure release readiness dependant on environment type.

  • Staging environments are now standard and are used to test the deployment process before Production.

  • RTM’s have oversight and visibility of the dev, test and sprint process, collaborating with the scrum team to ensure that Sprint goals are met.

  • RTM’s manage project stakeholder meetings to ensure all are happy with the quality of the release into Production.

Industries we work with

  • Agriculture

  • Retail and Trade Supplies

  • Energy

  • Super Funds

  • Telecommunications

  • Media

  • Medical

  • Ultra Fast Fibre