Distribution operators today face challenges from both regulatory bodies and consumers to improve the reliability of electric service delivery to homes,businesses and industrial customers while keeping costs in check.Reliability and quality of service in terms of minimizing outages,maintaining acceptable voltage and reactive power profiles,reducing outage times and slowing down the growing cost of system operations have been important incentives for Distribution operators to look toward creative automation solutions.

Traditionally, distribution operators have relied only on IT information system solutions to cope with managing their distribution business. IT solutions such as GIS Systems, Outage Management Systems and Customer Information Systems, although important parts of managing an effective distribution operations business, lack a holistic treatment of the distribution management problem. A global Distribution Management strategy must rely on a holistic and total view of the entire distribution business.