Business View Caribbean - Sept. / Oct. 2014

%XVLQHVV 9LHZ ‡ &DULEEHDQ ² 6HSWHPEHU ‡ 2FWREHU &DULEEHDQ 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. &DULEEHDQ 6HSWHPEHU ‡ 2FWREHU ² &DULEEHDQ ‡ %XVLQHVV 9LHZ “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.”