In the utilities sector and across manufacturing industries, asset management and service management play crucial roles in the reliable and efficient delivery of electricity to consumers.

While these two disciplines have distinct focuses, their integration is essential for optimizing operations, enhancing customer satisfaction and achieving regulatory compliance. In an industry where infrastructure is aging, distributed energy resources (DER) and grid systems are being more integrated, and customer expectations are rising, it’s critical that utilities’ physical assets perform optimally.

Asset management helps prevent operational failures and costly downtime by enabling strategic asset investment and maintenance decisions. Service management plays a key role in addressing grid operations, like outage response, configuring and maintaining operating technology, and fulfilling service requests. Each must be handled efficiently and transparently with strong communication across cross-functional teams. Together, both disciplines support a utility’s ability to meet regulatory compliance standards, manage risks and maintain public trust, all while adapting to evolving technologies and market demands.

Recognizing how asset management and service management work together is essential for building resilient, high-performing systems that deliver reliable service to customers.  

Effective asset management means regular inspections, proactive maintenance and swift repairs. For electric utilities, this covers power plants, transmission lines, substations and transformers that keep electricity flowing. Equally important is the decommissioning and disposal of resources at the end of their useful life with special care focused on meeting environmental regulations, minimizing waste and promoting sustainable practices. No matter what stage an asset is in during its life cycle, proper asset management practices can boost reliability, cut downtime and extend the life of critical infrastructure while enhancing efficiency.

As a part of judiciously managing assets, utilities and manufacturers must meet evolving energy demands and technological advancements by planning for the timely procurement of new assets. This involves aligning investment decisions with demand forecasts, regulatory requirements and emerging innovations in grid technology.

Asset management teams protect infrastructure performance and contribute to long-term organizational stability by aligning investment decisions with asset life cycles, forecasting future costs and minimizing unplanned expenditures. By pinpointing weak spots, safeguarding critical assets and tackling issues early, skilled teams eliminate risks before problems spread. These teams help keep power flowing by optimizing asset performance, minimizing outages, driving high operational standards and delivering clear communication when disruptions hit. 

Service management enables an organization to deliver its business capabilities by focusing on service operations that affect stakeholders. Services are delivered through structured processes, procedures, technical support and metrics that provide a foundation for continuous improvement. Service management for operational technology (OT) in particular is important and involves:

• Service definitions: Identifying business services, application services, technical services, and the hierarchical service relationships and/or integrations that need to be supported.
• Operational procedures: Establishing clear procedures and tasks for service delivery.
• Customer support: Providing consistent and effective assistance to customers.
• Performance metrics: Using data to measure success and identify areas for improvement.
• Continuous enhancement: Using subjective feedback and objective metrics to constantly refine service delivery.

Utility service management functions are typically distributed across several specialized departments, each responsible for different aspects of operations, OT, customer service, IT, infrastructure and regulatory compliance. Service management enables integrated and uninterrupted operations, addresses service-impacting incidents by business priority, and supports upgrade projects and service enhancements that help maintain system reliability.

It is critical to remember that service management bridges technical operations and delivery of business capabilities by translating service performance into measurable outcomes that matter to customers and organizations. It aligns OT, IT and operational efforts with broader business objectives, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as uptime, response times and stakeholder satisfaction, service management teams deliver actionable insights that enable service owners to refine procedures and enhance service quality. Additionally, stakeholder interactions and feedback loops help owners create a cycle of learning and enhancement. Combined, feedback and KPIs help utilities become more responsive to a stakeholders’ needs, positioning OT, IT and operations teams as strategic enablers of exceptional customer experience rather than just support functions. 

Asset management and service management are two sides of the same coin when it comes to operational excellence. Electric utilities can achieve their goals of reliable electricity delivery and data-driven continuous improvement by leveraging the strengths of both. (See Figure 1).

Effective asset management reduces costs by extending the life of physical resources, preventing expensive failures and optimizing capital investments. Service management, on the other hand, drives revenue and customer loyalty by helping to maintain consistent, high-quality service delivery. Working together, these teams create a more resilient, efficient and customer-focused organization, directly impacting profitability, brand reputation and long-term sustainability.

The relationship between asset management and service management is symbiotic, with each discipline supporting the other to maintain infrastructure and service quality. When effectively integrated, these disciplines enable electric utilities to optimize operations, meet regulatory requirements and elevate customer satisfaction. This strategic alignment empowers utilities to deliver reliable electricity while continuously improving through data-driven insights.