Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

KPIs are indices of cost and production outcomes for a firm. KPIs enable decision makers to track trends and identify areas needing changes, including operational procedures, maintenance/inventory practices, and capacity investments. These indicators represent valuable information regarding whether infrastructure performance is improving or becoming worse, so tracking KPIs is essential for performance assessment and enhancement (benchmarking). KPIs can be classified into a set of categories that allow managers to establish primary responsibilities within the key departments of the regulated business (whether public or private). Since performance outcomes are inter-related and inter-dependent, creating an Overall Performance Indicator is problematic.  While specific departments might be responsible for collecting the data on one or more indices, performance will generally rely on the activities of several departments.   Thus, the associated key performance outcomes refer to overall technical and financial operations, service quality or customer experience, for example: hours per day of service (technical), non revenue water or line losses (operational), cash flows and collections (financial), and customer complaints (indicating value for money, from the users’ standpoint).