An effective approach for utilities and suppliers to assess the quality of new products before purchase

Metering technology has advanced from the basic Ferraris technology to microprocessor-controlled meters with solid state sensors and electronic register displays. The functional requirement for the microprocessor-controlled meters and modules has grown dramatically. There may be thousands of lines of software code in an electronic meter to support this additional functionality. Yet the existing type approval methods really only test the basic metering functionality. Should other arrangements be made for type approval of the software component, to reduce the risk for the purchaser of the end equipment? This paper discusses the problems faced by purchasers and manufacturers of utility equipment relying on existing type approval methods, and the philosophy which appears to be emerging from a number of national and European groups to solve some of these problems. The authors propose a cost-effective method that should address these problems for the manufacturers and provide a high degree of quality assurance to the purchasers. The paper focuses on software quality processes but a similar approach could be applied to the hardware aspects of product development. The discussion refers to revenue and payment metering as examples but the ideas proposed could be applied equally well to other products