1. Improvement programme for water and wastewater services in the Danube region
DANUBE REGION BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016
CALL TO REGISTER
September 2017
TECHNICAL PARTNER

2. Introduction Dear Colleague,
As you might know, one of the missions of the International Association of Water Supply Companies in the Danube River Catchment Area, IAWD in short, is to strengthen utilities in their effort to provide efficient and sustainable drinking water and wastewater services. One of the key mechanisms to support this effort is capacity building. An effort which is the main focus of the Danube Water Program in which IAWD joined forces with the World Bank.
One of the tools used to support capacity building within the DWP is benchmarking, as it is a major tool to improve water utility performance. Currently the DWP is already supporting national and regional benchmarking initiatives with focus on both, benefits for national regulators on one side and for utility companies on the other. The utility focused benchmarking efforts are a joint project with the European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC).
Based on the benchmarking experiences of the recent years, we have noticed the demand to introduce a new ‘level’. A new group of cutting edge utilities started to emerge, as utilities focused on international exchange of best practices. This new group will focus on utilities which are somewhat too large or well developed to be compared only with other utilities within their own country or region. These are the so called ‘best performers’ of their region.
To support this group in their further improvement, we would like to introduce a new group focussing on the complete Danube region. Within this new group the best performers will be benchmarked in order to offer them an even better comparison and the opportunity to continue the capacity building effort and improve their performance even further!
We would welcome your participation in this new group!
Yours sincerely,
Dipl. -Ing. Walter Kling,
Secretary General
IAWD
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

3. Table of content i Project objectives Target group Starting points
Deliverables
Take aways
Timeline
Conditions for
participation
Subscription
& Fees
About
The Danube Hub
Confidentiality
protocol
Click on an icon to navigate to the respective page i
Contact & more information
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

4. Project objectives
Primary objective of this benchmarking exercise is to help leading utilities, located within the Danube region to further improve their services by benchmarking* drinking water- and wastewater activities with high performing utilities of similar size and conditions, using data of Next to a thorough assessment of a utility’s performance, the program offers participants benchmarking workshops and platform/utility network to learn from leading/best practices and innovations.
Other objectives are:
to support leading utilities in cascading their know-how to other utilities;
to strengthen foundational activities of Danube Learning Partnership – D-LeaP;
to raise transparency and visibility of drinking water- & wastewater services;
to enable comparing performance data with other data sources (such as IBNet);
to increase IAWD membership base and EBC prospect utility base;
to establish pan-European lighthouse of good water- & wastewater practices;
* Within the program the following definition of benchmarking is used: “Benchmarking is a tool for performance improvement through systematic search and adaption of leading practices”
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

5. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

6. Target group
IAWD encourages water and wastewater utilities in the Danube Region who are interested in further improving their performance in a group of frontrunners from the region, to join this leading-edge project.
Utilities from the following countries are invited to join:
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

7. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

8. Starting points Scope: Drinking water- & wastewater services in 2016.
Drinking water
Wastewater
Context information
Service quality
Sustainability (1)
Finance & efficiency
Water quality
Reliability
Sustainability (1, 2, 3)
Advanced level
Standard level
Basic level
Scope: Drinking water- & wastewater services in 2016.
Planning: Registration for the exercise starts in September 2017, final results will be available by April 2018.
Performance assessment: The benchmarking programme follows the approach of the European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC) and is fully aligned with the IWA/AWWA-benchmarking framework. The programme offers three different assessment levels (basic, standard and advanced). For maximum added value, participants are encouraged to choose the highest possible level. Which level best fits a utility depends on the availability of reliable data, benchmarking experience and ambition.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

9. To indicate the data collection efforts: the most advanced level requires about 240 data items for drinking water and 190 data items for wastewater, which takes on average about 2-3 weeks of labour to collect depending on experience and data availability. The basic level takes considerably less effort; however, one should take into consideration that benchmarking is not so much about the data collection effort, but about the benefits you may expect in return. The more advanced the benchmarking level, the more the pay-off in terms of a more detailed performance analysis and a better insight in the respective business processes. For utilities new to EBC we may recommend ‘standard level’ as introduction to the methodology and the platform.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

10. Benchmarking is a management tool for continuous improvement
Benchmarking is a management tool for continuous improvement. It is most effective if an utility embeds the benchmarking in its annual business planning cycle.
Ownership of the data: The ownership of the submitted utility data is with the participating utilities.
Meetings: The number of face-to-face meetings is as limited as possible because of time, travel and accommodation expenses.
Project language: The project is conducted in English. This holds for all communications and documents.
Project tools: Full on-line tools are available in English, which is the project language. Nevertheless, on-line data entry and on-line data reporting is also available in growing number of languages.
Benchmarking workshop: As a quality management tool, utility benchmarking is very technical, but in the same time also a social tool, intended to support utility management and benchmarking teams to lead organizational change toward improvement. The workshop is therefore essential part of the exercise.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

11. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

12. Deliverables
An Orientation & Training workshop to explain the programme, the benchmarking process, the methodology and how to assure a good data quality. This workshop targets in particular at those who are new to benchmarking.
Access to an online platform which contains a data entry part, discussion forum and data reporting system. The reporting tool offers the option to view detailed results on- line, with grouping and filtering options for tailored analysis (available during one year after the project).
An exception report which supports the participants in the analysis of possible outliers and errors in the submitted data. In addition, during the data entry on-line platform provides instant automatic data consistency alerts to support participants in minimizing data mistakes.
A draft company report to check the first results and discuss them during the benchmarking workshop and to perform an additional check on submitted data.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

13. A benchmarking workshop where utility representatives meet to validate the comparisons, identify performance gaps, discuss possible explanations, share good practices and innovations, network and discuss improvement actions. The annual benchmarking workshop is an essential part of the exercise. At this stage utility benchmarking teams and utility management needs to step in, because improving the service requires input from utility staff of different expertise. EBC encourages participating utilities to be represented in the workshop by staff of different backgrounds, like senior management, process managers, experts and benchmarking coordinators.
A confidential, individual company report (in English) on standard level, in which, for selected key performance indicators, utilities are compared with other participants to identify performance gaps. The company report includes an executive summary with key findings, as well as detailed comparisons. Furthermore it contains a water balance and a complete cost model. Utilities which decide to participate at advanced level will be provided with additional section of the report.
A utility leaders dinner back to back with the annual DWP conference during which CEO’s and MT members can discuss results and address possible improvements on a policy level.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

14. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

15. Take aways Get a better understanding of your own utility
Find and define the performance gaps
Get inspired and improve by learning
Become part of a growing European utility network
ASSESS
LEARN
IMPROVE
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

16. Timeline The Process 1. 2. Orientation & training workshop
Data collection
The benchmarking cycle starts with the registration phase from 14 September till 13 October. The actual process comprises 5 main steps. In the following pages these five steps are briefly addressed:
The project starts with an (online) orientation and training workshop on 5 October in Vienna at the office of DWP. In this workshop (potential) participants are informed about the process, methodology and the platform used for the benchmarking exercise.
Data collection starts on 16 October. The participants will receive login details for the platform and a ‘Quick start manual’ to begin swiftly with the data collection and data entry. From this moment on participants can contact the online helpdesk with questions regarding the data entry. Participants can submit initial data till 30 November.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

17. 3. 4. 5. Data validation Benchmarking workshop Final reporting
In this step, the quality of the data is verified and improved where necessary. On top of the automated checks which happen during the submission process the Hub co-ordinator checks the dataset of each utility and provides feedback to participants on 6 December with an Exception report, showing possible mistakes and outliers that need to be verified and improved.
After validating the submitted data, draft reports are produced in February and made available to the participants as input for the benchmarking workshop. During the workshop, which will take place in March, improvement options play a central role. Participants share good practices and pose questions on their biggest challenges.
After the workshop, two more weeks are available for final corrections in the datasets and Final company reports are produced and made available to the participants in April.
The project is finalized with a CEO dinner, focussing on improvement strategies, back to back with the DWP conference in May.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

18. Conditions for participation
Nominate a benchmarking coordinator and team within your utility;
Complete and return the signed Registration form;
comply with EBC’s confidentiality protocol;
master the English language sufficiently (for involved utility staff);
have an internet connection and Office software available;
pay the applicable participation fee within 30 days after invoicing.
In order to assure a successful benchmarking exercise for all, EBC and IAWD expect from participating utilities to:
provide the project team with the necessary company information to understand the context (profile, annual report, etc.);
submit the required data in time, with a sufficient confidence grade;
adequately respond to questions of the project team;
attend the benchmarking workshop and actively contribute to it.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

19. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

20. Subscription & Fees
IAWD offers the following option to subscribe for the benchmarking programme:
Subscription for one year:
2500* Euro for any utility from the Danube Region (17 countries included);
2. Available discounts (maximum discount of 1500* Euro, i.e. minimum subscription of 1000* Euro):
1000* Euro discount for utilities already participating in utility benchmarking HUBs of IAWD;
500* Euro discount for IAWD member utilities;
The (not-for-profit) fee paid by participants covers the common project costs, like: labour-, travel- and accommodation costs of the project team; external assistance of the EBC-project team; organization of the orientation & training workshop and the benchmarking workshop; IT-costs (website, database, tools, certificates, licenses, etc.); communication costs (printing, mailing, etc.). The project will also cover accommodation costs of participants during the benchmarking workshop planned for March 2018.
Next to common project costs, the exercise brings own costs that participants need to cover themselves, like: labour costs for data collection & validation; travel and accommodation costs for attending the orientation & training workshop and travel costs for the benchmarking workshop.
For information on IAWD membership structure please visit:
* IAWD holds the right to annually adjust the fees with the Austrian consumers price index (inflation).
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

21. If, unexpectedly, the number of registered utilities at the closing date would be too few to generate useful results and/or to cover the common project costs, IAWD has the right to cancel the project or (in consultation with participants) continue it in an alternative way.
If, on the other hand, the number of registered utilities surpass expected response, IAWD will seek the ways to further reduce costs of water and wastewater utilities related to participation in the Danube Region HUB and also to further grow and strengthen the connection between utilities from the Danube Region and utilities from Western Europe which participate directly in EBC activities.
Interested utilities can register by contacting Philip Weller
Closing date for registration is 16 October Utilities that wish to join after this date are still very welcome, but delayed registration may result in not being included in the (exception or draft) reports.
In case of delayed registration, please contact the project team via:
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

22. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017
Photo credit: Vewin

23. About the Danube Region Hub
The Danube Region Hub is initiated in 2017 by IAWD in order to support capacity building and the sharing of knowledge and experience among its members and other utilities located in the Danube region. It provides upgrade to national and sub-regional HUBs that were developed in the past few years, what counts participation of 70+ utilities from the Danube Region.
The methodology and the IT platform used for the benchmarking exercise are provided by the EBC Foundation, technical partner of the IAWD.
The project team consists of the Hub Coordinator who can be contacted for practical and methodological question and IAWD Head of Technical Secretariat, who can be contacted for managerial issues.
Coordinators of national and sub-regional utility benchmarking HUBs may also be contacted for additional information.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

24. Project Team Aleksandar KRSTIC Hub Co-ordinator The Danube Hub
Phillip WELLER
Head of Technical Secretariat
IAWD
Technical partner
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

25. About IAWD
The International Association of Water Supply Companies in the Danube River Catchment Area (IAWD) is an association of water utilities and other stakeholders working in the sector in the Danube region, which is the source for the water supply of over 80 million people. IAWD´s mission is to assist utilities and their staff in their responsibility to provide a secured and well managed urban water cycle and to ensure their customers have access to water that is safe and free from hazards. For this, the water quality of the Danube and its tributaries needs to be protected for the present as well as for future generations.
IAWD acts as a regional platform for information exchange, peer to peer networking and knowledge sharing and coordinates its work around three basic principles:
communicate,
connect,
capacitate
More information:
Improvement programme for water- and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

26. About the Danube Water Program
The Danube Water Program supports policy dialogue and capacity development to achieve Smart Policies, Strong Utilities, Sustainable Services in the water supply and wastewater sector in the Danube Region.
The Program is jointly run by the World Bank and IAWD, with seed financing from the Government of Austria. The Danube Water Program is developed through five pillars, covering topics ranging from strategic policy options all the way to utility operational matters. Concrete actions carried out under the Program that are focused at utility operations are:
Energy Efficiency
Asset Management
Utility Benchmarking
Commercial Efficiency
Regarding utility benchmarking, local associations in the region, EBC Foundation and the Danube Water Program have joined forces to establish regional benchmarking programmes with the objective to improve water services by benchmarking and learning from each other.
More information:
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

27. About EBC
The European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC) is an industry-based, not-for-profit benchmarking initiative to improve water services.
EBC was initiated in 2005 by the national water utility associations of The Netherlands (Vewin) and the Nordic countries (DANVA, FIWA, Norsk Vann, Svenskt Vatten) and several utilities of the Nordic 6-Cities Group (Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm). After two pilot exercises, EBC started annual benchmarking exercises for water utilities from Europe and even beyond.
In 2014, the EBC programme consortium has been converted into EBC Foundation, a legal entity under Dutch law. This conversion enables strengthening the governance of the programme and better focus on the core business: improving water services. The conversion also enables further development of the programme, from the perspective of content as well as geographically. Next to the Western European programme, EBC also facilitates regional programmes in Central- and Eastern Europe.
More information:
“Our mission is to facilitate water utilities in the continuous process of improving & innovating water services and raising transparency, by offering an international benchmarking programme, providing a platform for exchanging leading/best practices of management and operations and by sharing knowledge and experiences”
Peter Dane, Managing director EBC
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

28. Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017
Photo credit: Aquanet Spólka Akcyjna

29. Confidentiality protocol
To balance the need for a safe learning environment and the call for transparency, IAWD applies the following confidentiality protocol:
as a general rule, IAWD-partners and -participants handle individual utility data/-results that are submitted/exchanged in the framework of the project confidentially;
utilities can choose to participate transparently or anonymously:
transparent option: the results for my utility may be shared with other participants. This means that in your company report the results of all affirmative participants will be shown with their utility name. All other participating utilities will be shown anonymously;
anonymous option: the results for my utility must be presented in an anonymous way. This means that in your company report the results of all participating utilities will be shown anonymously;
in the (closed) benchmarking workshop, results of the performance comparisons are shown in a transparent way, to be able to discuss outliers, performance gaps & best practices more effectively;
public reporting:
IAWD is entitled to report externally about the results of the exercise;
names of participants and their general characteristics are considered to be public information;
all other individual utility data/results are confidential and will only be shown in an anonymous way;
comparisons with other data sources will be anonymous, unless agreed otherwise;
for the remaining, IAWD, its partners and participants endorse the EFQM European Benchmarking Code of Conduct and act accordingly.
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

30. More information: www.ib-net.org
At registration, Participants are explicitly asked if they give permission to IAWD to share collected IBNet-indicators with the World Bank. Permission of Participants to share IBNet-indicators, will only hold for these specific indicators.
Background information: IBNet is the global largest database of water- and sanitation services from the World Bank. At present, the IBNet-database mainly contains data from utilities in developing countries and emerging countries; the number of data from utilities in developed countries is still limited. For balanced policy making by the different stakeholders, the World Bank aims to include more data from utilities in developed countries. From this perspective the World Bank has requested IAWD to share IBNet-indicators, as these are also collected in the EBC-programme. According to the confidentiality protocol, IAWD does not exchange data with third parties without permission of Participants. Therefore, Participants are explicitly asked for this permission).
More information:
Improvement programme for water and wastewater utilities in the Danube region • INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING EXERCISE IB2016 SEPTEMBER 2017

31. Contact & more information weller@iawd.at http://www.iawd.at
IAWD| Grabnergasse 4-6, A-1060 | Vienna | Austria