As the era of Smart Metering has seen significant growth and many questions were being raised on acceptability of same by end customers by raising health concerns. Though utilities get benefitted by AMI largely, there is small pie which goes in favor of end customers by providing real time consumption information.
Distribution utilities has now major concerns over Fault Management, so as to comply with
1- Regulatory Measures
2- Improve SAIDI, SAIFI and CAIDI
3- Customer satisfaction
4- Safety Concerns

Since, with AMI we have now measuring end nodes (smart meters), we have better accessability to more granular information. AMI also provides backhaul communication over which data from various other equipments can also be fetched.

By having strategic interface touch points of AMI with DMS systems, minutes of fault management can be potentially reduced. Having less interupptions provide various benefits to Utility such as:
1- Minimal loss of unsold power
2- Customer satisfaction
3- Better Asset Management
4- Meeting Regulatory Guidelines.

DMS is going to be critical component in Smart Grids and provides more satisfaction to consumers wrt AMI. With DMS we can have better power quality and availability.

Jasjeet