American Gas - May 2014 - (Page 31)

this year marks the 21st anniversary of aga's gas utility operations Best Practices Benchmarking program. With more than 500 operations personnel coming to Pittsburgh this month for the aga operations conference, it seemed like a good time to review the benefits of one of aga's most powerful tools for improving operational performance from both an efficiency and a safety perspective. as the columns below make clear, the program's benchmarking and roundtable programs provide valuable insights while acknowledging that what's a "best practice" for one company isn't best for all. -Richard Sine like coke and PePsi Working together By Scott Edgerton T he AGA's Best Practices Program has been a leader in improving the safety of our customers and communities in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Each year our Steering Committee chooses three to six topics to discuss for benchmarking and roundtable discussion (see sidebar, next page). At the kickoff meeting in January, program participants discuss the criteria for measuring performance and related industry issues. (Typically we decide on two measures, one for productivity, or cost, and one for effectiveness, or service level.) After each participating organization collects the required data, AGA and the program managers summarize the data and provide the benchmarking data to all participants. The group identifies certain companies as having leading practices and invites them to make presentations during a June data review meeting, which typically lasts about two days. After data has been collected and the best-practice companies selected, roundtable dates and sites are determined in order to bring subject matter experts (SMEs) together to review various processes within the work topics benchmarked. At these roundtables SMEs discuss their own internal practices for tackling industry issues related to the benchmarked topic and identify best practices to share with their companies. New Jersey Natural Gas has participated in the program since 1997. We review all performance measures supplied by the program and use them to help set our own internal goals for the following fiscal year. To get the biggest "bang for the buck," we focus our improvement efforts on areas where we placed near or below the median. Of course, data collection among companies does not entirely compare apples to apples and aren't audited. But if you find yourself in a lower quartile than you expected of a particular process, regardless of how the data is interpreted, this suggests you might want to consider allocating resources for a quality improvement initiative. The first quartile of performance sets the bar for us in terms of how we should be performing. The benchmarking data also allows us to justify setting standards for workgroup-based incentives for our workforce. When it came time about 10 years ago to benchmark the percentage of emergency calls responded to within 60 minutes, we thought we would be doing well because our figure was 99.1 percent. It turned out that best-in-class performance was 100 percent. That has inspired us, and we are currently responding to 99.8 percent of calls within 60 minutes. New Jersey Natural Gas has adopted best practices identified through the program in areas including leak repair and emergency response. Additionally New Jersey Natural Gas has hosted best practices roundtables after being identified as leaders in main leak repair and contractor quality oversight. I've been told by other utilities that they have adopted some of our best practices, such as using a pneumatic drill in leak pinpointing. (A few years ago our quality team devised a method by which the drill is affixed to the back of our trucks, which then drive down a street drilling bar holes. The technique is safer and produces less strain on employees when compared to having an employee walk down the street with a jackhammer or a manual drill.) Over the years, we have streamlined the data collection process in order to make it less cumbersome. And we have shifted the focus of the program away from performance data to sharing innovative technologies that could have meaningful impact on safety or reliability-even if that impact hasn't shown up in the numbers. The gas industry is unique in its willingness to share information among competitors. Could you imagine Coca-Cola and Pepsi getting together to make a better soda? All of us are coming together to help keep our employees and customers safer and our system more reliable, in the most cost-effective manner. Every AGA member should take a hard look at this program. Simply put, if you're not taking a hard look at your work practices, how do you know you're improving? u may 2014 AmericAn GAs 31

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Gas - May 2014

Contents

American Gas - May 2014

https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/20151201
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201411
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201410
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/20141201
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201311
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/20131201
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aga/201208
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