Open and distributed information systems for distribution, fiction or reality?

As Spain's leading Electric Power Utility and the third largest in Europe, Iberdrola serves a market whose customers are spread over an area of 190000 sq. kms. The Company's integration plan relies basically on the business project, and as a tool, uses an information system plan which unifies criteria, ensures coherence in procedures and operations, and optimizes the supply quality for the customer. The authors describe the Distribution Facilities and Resources Integrated Information System (SIGRID), and its distributed development on open and standardized platforms, whose pilot test is to be implemented in the first half of 1993.