said. “The building process has been much quicker, and
also the assistance that other members give to their
brother and sister members to assist in having a quicker
recovery process.”
As a component of itsmission toenhanceeffectiveness
of member entities, CARILEC performs and distributes
an annual benchmark study of the region’s utilities. The
work comprehensively covers technical aspects of utility
performance, in addition to other aspects that have
included both human resources and environmental
factors.
The study has been performed every year but one
since 2002 and has grown to play a significant role
in informing not only members -- but also pertinent
regional stakeholders and the industry as a whole --
about the overall performance of the member utilities.
Some of the metrics observed pertain to electricity
generation, transmission and distribution, as well as
planning, metering and commercialization. And not
surprisingly, upon comparing one utility to another,
differing success rates become evident.
“We can go really deep and look at specific areas,
and there are many, where our member utilities have
improved,” Thorington said, “and where they need to
improve their performances. A specific area would be
generation efficiency. That’s a specific area in which our
utilities need to improve.”
Armed with that knowledge, necessary changes
are better undertaken, though Thorington conceded
that study strategies are being developed to make the
endeavor even more useful to all involved parties.
“We’re at the point where we’re looking at a
comprehensiveapproach todevisinga strategy for utility-
performance improvement, using the benchmarking
study,” he said. “We want to ensure, from a secretariat
or holistic perspective, what is required to make utility
X, Y and Z better at their performance. We’re in the
process of devising that strategy. From a technical
perspective, it has been very informative and it has
been used by the utilities.
“However, we feel that more can be achieved.
If we take it as a whole, we have a mainly technical
component, theHR component and the environmental
component. Putting those together, and looking at areas
where our utilities can improve their performances, I
think that the opportunity is really there to lift up our
member utilities to another level of performance.”
