Balanced Scorecard for AMI Program Management

Advanced metering penetration in the US has reached the point of transition when the rate of process innovation has started to surpass the rate of product innovation. An estimated 40 million smart meters have already been installed, and another 25 are making their ways to the cross-docks by 2015. The era of ferment is over; there is no more “piloting” by individual utilities, - the new entrants are gleefully implementing the best practices established by the early adopters. New business models have been enabled, and new markets have opened up. Utilities are venturing into leveraging AMI for business lines outside of Meter-to-Cash. Overall, AMI has been a grand success story, - so far.

Nevertheless, irrespective of the dominant designs established in technology and market, managing an AMI program is far from being simple. PMOs are challenged with meeting year-on-year regulatory commitments, sustaining customer favorability and steering organizational changes. In absence of a well-designed scorecard, they scramble through a random mesh of SLAs and metrics that do not line up to the overall objectives. Although it’s sort of an unconventional use of it, the classic Balanced Scorecard fits the bill extremely well if you look at the dimensions associated with an AMI program.

Below is an example of how the Balanced Scorecard approach can be leveraged for AMI program management. For the sake of simplicity, I have provided examples of only the aspects concerning meter deployment. Steady state parameters can be blended in pretty smoothly to this structure.