Capgemini has signed a two-year contract extension with Hydro One Networks Inc. to provide smart metering services for the company’s automated metering infrastructure program, including program management, process design, systems, integration and infrastructure management.

In 2006, Hydro One launched a four-year program to deploy 1.3 million smart meters, a smart network to connect those meters to their data centers, and new and modified applications to process time-of-use billing.

Capgemini was recently awarded the implementation portion of the contract due to the experience and capability of the design team and the completeness of the solution definition. The project will employ approximately 100 Capgemini staff, including global subject matter specialists and a large team of local project delivery professionals, providing the following services to Hydro One over the four-year project lifecycle:

• requirements management: subject matter specialist and project management resources to help collect, define and confirm business requirements;
• process design: process analyst and project management resources to help define and document new business processes to allow the efficient replacement of current meters, and define future-state operations, including billing operations, meter operations and meter network operations;
• systems integration: application development and project management services to plan and execute all systems integration;
• infrastructure management: design, installation and testing of new environments for enhanced applications, including application servers, data servers and network;
• customer contact center: contact center specialists to identify and estimate smart meter impacts to current customer care operations, as well as hiring and training call center staff to respond to anticipated customer needs;
• field services: development of meter deployment plans and implementation schedules for teams of field service technicians, as well as development, deployment and support of enabling technologies to drive substantial process efficiencies;
• program management: provision of a robust suite of project management services, including integration, scope, schedule, quality, and risk management.