POWER May 2011 - 90

BENCHMARKING
mum total station-level metrics was nearly
90; the minimum was nine.)
The obvious question when looking
at Figure 3, is, Why are so many metrics
tracked yet so few used for compensation
purposes? For some companies, many of
the metrics tracked are indicators of the
same concerns. For example, start-up
failures and boiler waterwall leaks both
cause forced outages but are tracked and
managed separately at the station level,
whereas they may be combined as part of
an overall forced outage metric at the fleet
level. When it comes to picking the metric
that best represents station-level employee
performance, the more comprehensive
metric often is chosen, such as equivalent
availability factor or demand equivalent
forced outage rate (EFORd) because these
communicate a better overall sense of how
the plant performed in a given year.
Keeping Score
Scorecards (also called " balanced score1.
The number of station-level performance metrics used for compensation
decisions. Source: EUCG
Small plant
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
1
2
3
4
5
2. The number of fleet-level performance
metrics used for compensation
decisions. Source: EUCG
Small plant
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
Medium plant
Large plant
6
7
Plant number
8
9 10 11
Medium plant
Large plant
cards " ) are a management tool used to ensure
that business activities throughout an
organization are well-aligned with corporate
goals and objectives. The " balance, "
to achieve a comprehensive view of the
business, is achieved when as many nonfinancial
activities relating to employees
and customers are used as are financial
and operational measures. Nonfinancial
measures are useful because many purely
financial measures speak to only past
events.
Dr. Robert S. Kaplan, one of the originators
of the balanced scorecard, suggests
that " information age companies must . . .
create future value through investment in
customers, suppliers, employees, processes,
technology, and innovation. " Kaplan's approach
is to use the scorecard as a tool to
translate the typically more passive strategic
plan goals into action-oriented activities by
individual business units and down to individual
workers to guide daily work. Kaplan
also suggests that developing metrics, collecting
data, and analyzing the data are necessary
parts of the process.
Surveyed companies were also asked,
" At what level are scorecards tied to
compensation? " Multiple answers were
allowed (Figure 4). Each scorecard is a
combination of unique metrics selected
for company-specific reasons. For example,
employees are usually assigned metrics
based upon their position and function
within the organization. Employees assigned
to a specific station will typically
be assigned some combination of station
metrics, while a roving maintenance team
that services multiple plants will usually
be given fleet-level or fuel-type generation
metrics. Company executives tend to have
3. The number of station-level metrics tracked compared with the number
of metrics used for compensation decisions. Source: EUCG
Measures used for compensation
1
88
2
3
4
Plant number
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5
6
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Total number of measures used
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9
Plant
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
POWER | May 2011
Number of performance measures
Number of performance measures
Total measures used
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POWER May 2011

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