Best Practices Program lets utilities share the

keys to success

OPEN secrets

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like coke and PePsi Working togetherBy Scott Edgerton

T he AGA’s Best Practices Program has been a leader in improving the safety of our customers and communi-ties in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

Each year our Steering Committee chooses three to six topics to discuss for benchmarking and round-

table 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 effective-ness, 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 round-tables 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 bench-mark 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 respond-ing 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 emer-gency 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 prac-tices, 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 pro-cess 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 in-formation 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 prac-tices, how do you know you’re improving? u

this year marks the 21st anniversary of aga’s gas utility operations Best Practices Bench-marking 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 ben-efits 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

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getting the most out of the BPP By Matthew Helmers

I f your company has not joined AGA’s Best Practices Program, you should take a second look. Southwest Gas Corp. has found the program to be a valuable tool in benchmarking our processes and procedures against the rest of the industry. The BPP is comprised of different size

companies, so you can find a subset to use for comparison with your company. Being involved can introduce best practices that your company might never have tried, or your company may be a leader and your knowledge-sharing improves the industry as a whole. Southwest has embraced a goal of improving safety, service, and reliability. This can only be accomplished by leveraging the strengths of our employees and others in the industry.

To get the most from the BPP, you should designate someone to be the point of contact throughout the process. This person will ensure that the data collected during the benchmarking is consistent with that provided by the other members. Southwest has five operating divisions in three states, so most data must be collected by each division and then merged into a single response. The results from the process are only as good as the data you put forth. Once all the results are published, your company’s contact should spend time analyzing the data packet and questionnaires

for trends. The data will show how your company generally com-pares, as well as areas where you may excel or need improvement. The contact should then report his or her findings to management for discussion.

The data collection for the benchmarking can seem daunt-ing. AGA and the Best Practices Committee members have made great strides in streamlining the process. They have worked with member companies to review all data packets and question-naires to remove questions that were not beneficial to the process. For example, this year’s Damage Prevention Marking Locating questionnaire had more than 40 questions removed, allowing for a shorter response time while not impacting the quality of results.

The benchmarking data is invaluable for comparing your company’s results to others in the industry. You can use the data to find subsets of companies similar to yours in size or geographi-cal region and compare the results. You might find that your company is a vanguard in one area, while it may need to focus on improving its processes and procedures in another. The results will help you compile a list of companies you will want to contact during the follow-up conference and corresponding roundtables, to discuss their practices in achieving their results.

While the benchmarking data is important, involvement in the corresponding roundtable events is paramount. These meetings give you the opportunity to interact with other BPP companies and gather information. Use your findings from the benchmarking section to draft questions that you would like to ask your fellow BPP members. Seek out those that you want to learn more about and discuss with them how they achieved their results. There are multiple networking opportunities throughout a roundtable event in which you can ask questions and probe further into another company’s best practices. There are also breakout sessions where smaller groups discuss their successes. The findings from the break-out sessions are then summarized and reported to the entire group.

These discussions can have unexpected benefits. Leak survey was not even a topic on last year’s roundtable agenda, but a side conversation brought up the idea of tracking leak surveys us-ing GPS. One of the member companies explained that its local public utility commission was requiring it to supply GPS track-ing data as proof that the leak survey was complete; it would no longer accept highlighted maps. The company said that GPS data assists with the quality control process, as the tracking helps to verify that all mains and services were surveyed. Now Southwest is exploring options to utilize GPS leak survey tracking in the future.

Once the representatives return from the roundtable, they should report on what they discovered. Then they should review the practices that were discussed and see if they are right for their company to implement. They can also point out where their company already excels. Southwest has been a longtime member of the BPP and plans to continue. We recognize that to achieve our goals in the areas of safety, service, and reliability, we must learn from others and strive to be a leader in the industry. The BPP helps us to do so. u

Up For DIscUssIonAbout 70 topics have been discussed by the Distribution Best Practices committee since 1993, many of them several times.

Here’s a sampling of recent topics.

TopIcs DIscUssED EacH yEarsystem reliability (leak response, outages,

third-party damages, etc.) company Profile (operations and maintenance

expenditure, capital expenditures, etc.)

spEcIaL TopIcs For 2014Distribution integrity management

Damage PreventionLeak management

Field Operations safety

spEcIaL TopIcs For 2013Public Awareness

meter set ProtectionQuality managementemergency response

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sharing the sPotlightBy Lisa Kallberg

o ur industry is in the spotlight almost every day. We share our mistakes and successes not only on a local level with partners, but also with our competitors. We strive together to keep the public and employees safe. By participating in

AGA’s Best Practices Program, Xcel Energy has the most up-to-date information on how the industry is operating and reacting to events and new regulations.

Xcel Energy has presented on several topics in the past few years: Emergency Response Roundtable, Sewer Cross Bores, Meter Set Protection Workshop, Odorization, and Public Awareness. These opportunities allow us to discuss our practices, and we hope that other operators will be able to implement appropriate parts of what we have developed. We also take away great ideas and practices from other operators.

One recent example of the impact of the program on our company is how we modified the metric for emergency response. We had assumed our past practice of responding to E1 (blowing gas, fire, explosion) within 30 minutes was top quartile. After reviewing the 2013 data packet on emergency response, we realized we were in the bottom half. A team was put together to change how we re-spond and the time frame of response. Another example is our leak survey schedule: we were able to use the BPP data to help substanti-ate our reasoning to go from a five-year cycle to a three-year cycle by seeing the effectiveness rates of other AGA companies.

Our Pipeline Compliance and Standards Department along with executive leadership are members of several committees, so we regularly review BPP data and presentations, and attend roundtables to gauge our operations and procedures against other operators of similar size and geographical location. Our greatest value from roundtables is the interaction and sharing of ideas, procedures, and different products—materials that are used across the industry. Roundtables also give us the opportunity to develop contacts and re-lationships with individuals to whom we reach out to discuss issues we have identified or procedures we are developing.

Benchmarking not only allows us to generally compare our-selves to other utilities, but also to compare how far we’ve come with various practices. Through the questions that are asked, we also learn what the industry is focused on relating to data reviews. When we see the reports, we’ve learned that we may not be as good as we think we are in some areas, and are very pleased when we see that we are performing very well in other areas.

This program has had a very positive impact on the natural gas industry, both for safety and productivity. Gas companies are very

open to sharing their best practices and success stories so others can learn. We all share a common goal of making the industry safer for our customers and employees alike.

By joining the BPP, your company will have access to years’ worth of data gathering. As a member of the Steering Commit-tee, we look at the topics benchmarked in previous years so we get fresh data on the same topic. This allows us to see the progress the industry has made, or areas that still need improvement. Prior to joining the Steering Committee, I found it very beneficial to attend the kickoff and follow-up meetings to better understand the process of data gathering as well as the results.

Any company that wants to improve safety, increase productivity, and reduce costs would benefit by joining the Best Practices Program. u

What good looks likeBy Lisa Hurley

W hat does good look like? Who is the best?” Since the first Olympics were held in 776 BCE, athletes have sought ways to determine the top performers among a group through an equal comparison or, in other words,

healthy competition. Business performance can also be compared in a similar fashion and used to identify areas of opportunity for improvement. At Pacific Gas and Electric Co., we’ve made signifi-cant advancements in our operations, but we are always looking for ways to get better. Each year we evaluate our performance against our own internal goals. Through AGA’s Best Practices Pro-gram, we’ve expanded this performance measurement to include the best in the industry.

Take, for example, our emergency response times. Two years ago, we identified the average time it was taking PG&E to respond to an odor call as a metric we wanted to improve. We used the data gath-ered by the BPP to understand the industry performance landscape and compare our performance. We learned that our performance lagged far behind other like-sized utilities. At first most of us were in a state of disbelief, but it prompted us to set an internal goal and a challenge to our teams. We began to analyze our processes step by step to find where we needed to make a substantial improvement in performance. In addition, employee feedback through participa-tion in roundtable discussions and one-on-one conversations led to actionable steps we could take to improve our emergency response consistently across the 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California where we operate.

Now, two years on, we have reduced our average response time for emergencies by more than 30 percent and rank in the top

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quartile of gas companies. Had we never compared ourselves to others, we would not have charted a course for improvement. And I’m proud to say that PG&E’s odor response time is “what good looks like.” Not only is this example a major accomplish-ment, but our participation in AGA’s program fits perfectly with our proactive “find it and fix it” safety mantra.

AGA’s program has helped us identify leading company practices and build networks through the industry, and it serves as a catalyst for action. Our continuous improvement efforts and performance management teams use the data regularly to facilitate conversations and convene process improvement work-shops. Through our participation in the Best Practices Program, PG&E employees are no longer constrained by the limits of past performance. u

Scott Edgerton is director of Energy Delivery Support at New Jersey Natural Gas, which serves nearly half a million customers. He is also chair of AGA’s Best Practices Committee. Matthew Helmers is man-ager of Operations Planning & Analysis for Southwest Gas, which

a caTaLysT For acTIon aga’s Program has helPed us identify leadingcomPany Practices and Build netWorksthrough the industry.

is based in Las Vegas and serves 1.9 million customers in Arizona, California, and Nevada. He also serves as the vice chair of AGA’s Best Practices Committee. Lisa Kallberg is principal consultant, Gas Standards at Xcel Energy, which is based in St. Paul, Minn., and serves eight Western and Midwestern states. Lisa Hurley is gas opera-tions director at PG&E, which serves 15 million people in Northern and Central California and is headquartered in San Francisco.

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Publisher’s Note: The AGA Operations Best Practices Program is intended to highlight how particular companies may address a specific operational is-sue and may not include all of the data related to a highlighted practice. The need to implement and the timing of any implementation of highlighted practices will vary with each operator. Each operator serves a unique and defined geographic area and their system infrastructures vary widely based on a multitude of factors, including, condition, engineering practices, and materials. Each operator needs to evaluate highlighted practices in light of its system variables. Not all highlighted practices will be applicable to all operators due to the unique set of circumstances that are attendant to their specific systems. Companies are not ranked through this program and no one practice is identified as the best for a particular topic. This program is confidential and for AGA members only.