Most electricity distribution utilities today globally are focused on improving network minutes of supply lost. With the privatisation of the industry, minutes of supply calculated using agreed bench marking formula is being used by regulatory bodies to measure and control utility performance and in many cases heavy lines are imposed on those utilities that do not perform to agreed levels. For utilities that are not yet privalised most are faced with the future contestability of their customers and must answer compstitive advantage and performance. One of the best tools available to utility engineers today is distribution System Automation (DSA). This paper discusses the use of intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) to achieve distributed automated control of the electricity network. This is the use of algorithms that automatically reconfigure the netowkr under system fault conditions without operator control either locally or via supervisory control. Supervisory control over IEDs should not be considered DSA although it is ofter mistakenly referred to as DSA.