Full Description

The City of Topeka, Kansas, Public Works Department's Water Division undertook the first phase of a comprehensive optimization program in an effort to become more competitive with both private contractors as well as successfully operated public water utilities. Beyond the ongoing future potential of privatization, stabilization of water rates and the availability of additional capital funds for utility reinvestment became the most important project priorities. Given the experience of the above community as well as other optimization projects throughout the United States, the basic premise for this paper is that most communities will face very common issues when they begin the optimization process and therefore should follow a well thought out strategy that is predicated on the consistent success of the industry's best practices. Strategy should begin with basic optimization practices and be followed by competitive development, cultural alignment, and continuous improvement. Throughout the study and collaboration effort in Topeka, a significant and critically important emphasis was put on organizational change and performance incentives along with the more traditional technical approaches to reaching optimization. Particular emphasis focused on organized labor's buy in as well as their ongoing participation. Through the development of a broad and comprehensive benchmarking approach that focused on performance indicators rather than metrics, Topeka Water has been able to develop and implement an optimization program which can be both cost-effective as well as efficient over the long term.

Product Details

Published: 01/01/1999 ISBN(s): 1583210016 Number of Pages: 6 File Size: 1 file , 160 KB