METRIC BENCHMARKING

In recent years, benchmarking has gone from a buzzword in the water in dustry to a useful tool to assess performance. The AWWA Research Found ation has funded two studies of benchmarking, is sponsoring expansion of WaterStats into a database that can support benchmarking efforts, a nd has defined two forms of benchmarking-metric benchmarking and proce ss benchmarking. Metric benchmarking, more commonly used by water supp liers, involves tracking operations over time and comparing the perfor mance against that of similar companies within one industry. Process b enchmarking breaks system processes into individual steps and then com pares these process elements with those of the best practice providers from ally field. For water utilities, benchmarking is particularly us eful in five distinct applications: management review, strategic plann ing, outsourcing of services, reports to management, and system acquis ition.