IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v87y2023ipas0038012123000459.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The measurement of asset management performance of water companies

Author

Listed:
  • Vilarinho, Hermilio
  • D’Inverno, Giovanna
  • Nóvoa, Henriqueta
  • Camanho, Ana S.

Abstract

This study explores asset management performance of Portuguese water supply companies operating in the bulk market. The focus of the analysis are the managerial practices and the condition of infrastructures. This assessment is based on the information conveyed by the indicators collected by the Portuguese water and waste services’ regulator authority (ERSAR) between 2016 and 2020. The main contribution of this research is to propose innovative methods to enhance the knowledge on asset management practices in the water sector. Two Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) Composite Indicators are developed to highlight different aspects of asset management approaches. The first reflects organisations’ performance in maintaining their infrastructures at acceptable operational levels, and the other reveals their maturity in asset management practices. Robust and conditional approaches for estimating the BoD indicators are applied, allowing to obtain results that account for the effect of contextual variables on companies’ performance. Additionally, the performance of the companies is analysed over a 5-year period. The results show that there is significant room for improvement given the indicators’ values estimated in the benchmarking analysis. The type of management systems and areas of intervention (urban, semi-urban or rural) are factors that present significant impact in asset management performance. The analysis of trends in the evolution of performance over time revealed improvements both in the companies’ managerial practices and operational results.

Suggested Citation

  • Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Nóvoa, Henriqueta & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "The measurement of asset management performance of water companies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:87:y:2023:i:pa:s0038012123000459
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2023.101545
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012123000459
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2023.101545?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heesche, Emil & Asmild, Mette, 2022. "Controlling for environmental conditions in regulatory benchmarking," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Timo Kuosmanen, 2002. "Modeling Blank Data Entries in Data Envelopment Analysis," Econometrics 0210001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Van Puyenbroeck, Tom & Rogge, Nicky, 2020. "Comparing regional human development using global frontier difference indices," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Byrnes, Joel & Crase, Lin & Dollery, Brian & Villano, Renato, 2010. "The relative economic efficiency of urban water utilities in regional New South Wales and Victoria," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 439-455, August.
    5. Pinto, F.S. & Costa, A.S. & Figueira, J.R. & Marques, R.C., 2017. "The quality of service: An overall performance assessment for water utilities," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 115-125.
    6. Marques, Rui Cunha & Pinto, Francisco Silva, 2018. "How to watch the watchmen? The role and measurement of regulatory governance," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 73-81.
    7. Romano, Giulia & Guerrini, Andrea, 2011. "Measuring and comparing the efficiency of water utility companies: A data envelopment analysis approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 202-209.
    8. Sarrico, C. S. & Dyson, R. G., 2004. "Restricting virtual weights in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(1), pages 17-34, November.
    9. Luiza Bădin & Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2014. "Explaining inefficiency in nonparametric production models: the state of the art," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 214(1), pages 5-30, March.
    10. Fusco, Elisa & Vidoli, Francesco & Rogge, Nicky, 2020. "Spatial directional robust Benefit of the Doubt approach in presence of undesirable output: An application to Italian waste sector," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    11. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 2008. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195183528.
    12. Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2000. "DEA and its use in the regulation of water companies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 1-13, November.
    13. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2005. "Introducing Environmental Variables in Nonparametric Frontier Models: a Probabilistic Approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 93-121, September.
    14. Kristof Witte & David Saal, 2010. "Is a little sunshine all we need? On the impact of sunshine regulation on profits, productivity and prices in the Dutch drinking water sector," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 219-242, June.
    15. D’Inverno, Giovanna & De Witte, Kristof, 2020. "Service level provision in municipalities: A flexible directional distance composite indicator," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1129-1141.
    16. Bogetoft, Peter, 1995. "Incentives and productivity measurements," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 67-77, April.
    17. Li, Qi & Racine, Jeff, 2003. "Nonparametric estimation of distributions with categorical and continuous data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 266-292, August.
    18. Tourinho, Marco & Santos, Paulo Rosa & Pinto, Francisco Taveira & Camanho, Ana S., 2022. "Performance assessment of water services in Brazilian municipalities: An integrated view of efficiency and access," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    19. Kristof De Witte & Rui Marques, 2010. "Designing performance incentives, an international benchmark study in the water sector," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 18(2), pages 189-220, June.
    20. R. Cunha Marques & Kristof De Witte, 2010. "Towards a benchmarking paradigm in European water utilities," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 42-48, January.
    21. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    22. Hayfield, Tristen & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2008. "Nonparametric Econometrics: The np Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i05).
    23. Rogge, Nicky & De Jaeger, Simon & Lavigne, Carolien, 2017. "Waste Performance of NUTS 2-regions in the EU: A Conditional Directional Distance Benefit-of-the-Doubt Model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 19-32.
    24. Piran, Fabio Sartori & Lacerda, Daniel Pacheco & Camanho, Ana S. & Silva, Maria C.A., 2021. "Internal benchmarking to assess the cost efficiency of a broiler production system combining data envelopment analysis and throughput accounting," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    25. Verbunt, Pim & Rogge, Nicky, 2018. "Geometric composite indicators with compromise Benefit-of-the-Doubt weights," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 388-401.
    26. R. Allen & A. Athanassopoulos & R.G. Dyson & E. Thanassoulis, 1997. "Weights restrictions and value judgements in Data Envelopment Analysis: Evolution, development and future directions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 73(0), pages 13-34, October.
    27. Arnoldo C. Hax & Nicolas S. Majluf, 1983. "The Use of the Growth-Share Matrix in Strategic Planning," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 13(1), pages 46-60, February.
    28. D’Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura & Romano, Giulia, 2021. "Environmental sustainability and service quality beyond economic and financial indicators: A performance evaluation of Italian water utilities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    29. A Zanella & A S Camanho & T G Dias, 2013. "Benchmarking countries’ environmental performance," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 64(3), pages 426-438, March.
    30. Morais, Paulo & Camanho, Ana S., 2011. "Evaluation of performance of European cities with the aim to promote quality of life improvements," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 398-409, August.
    31. Mergoni, Anna & D'Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura, 2022. "A composite indicator for measuring the environmental performance of water, wastewater, and solid waste utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    32. Rogge, Nicky, 2018. "Composite indicators as generalized benefit-of-the-doubt weighted averages," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(1), pages 381-392.
    33. Zanella, Andreia & Camanho, Ana S. & Dias, Teresa G., 2015. "Undesirable outputs and weighting schemes in composite indicators based on data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(2), pages 517-530.
    34. Kristof De Witte & Mika Kortelainen, 2013. "What explains the performance of students in a heterogeneous environment? Conditional efficiency estimation with continuous and discrete environmental variables," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(17), pages 2401-2412, June.
    35. Kristof De Witte & Rui Cunha Marques, 2010. "Incorporating heterogeneity in non-parametric models: a methodological comparison," International Journal of Operational Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(2), pages 188-204.
    36. Fátima Pérez & Laura Delgado-Antequera & Trinidad Gómez, 2019. "A Two-Phase Method to Assess the Sustainability of Water Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-19, July.
    37. Marques, Rui Cunha, 2006. "A yardstick competition model for Portuguese water and sewerage services regulation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 175-184, September.
    38. Henriques, Alda A. & Camanho, Ana S. & Amorim, Pedro & Silva, Jaime G., 2020. "Performance benchmarking using composite indicators to support regulation of the Portuguese wastewater sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    39. Peter Bogetoft, 1994. "Incentive Efficient Production Frontiers: An Agency Perspective on DEA," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(8), pages 959-968, August.
    40. Alda A. Henriques & Milton Fontes & Ana S. Camanho & Giovanna D’Inverno & Pedro Amorim & Jaime Gabriel Silva, 2022. "Performance evaluation of problematic samples: a robust nonparametric approach for wastewater treatment plants," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 193-220, August.
    41. Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2000. "The use of data envelopment analysis in the regulation of UK water utilities: Water distribution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 436-453, October.
    42. Amado, Carla A.F. & São José, José M.S. & Santos, Sérgio P., 2016. "Measuring active ageing: A Data Envelopment Analysis approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(1), pages 207-223.
    43. Pereira, Miguel Alves & Camanho, Ana Santos & Figueira, José Rui & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2021. "Incorporating preference information in a range directional composite indicator: The case of Portuguese public hospitals," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(2), pages 633-650.
    44. Elizaveta Gavrikova & Irina Volkova & Yegor Burda, 2020. "Strategic Aspects of Asset Management: An Overview of Current Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-31, July.
    45. Van Puyenbroeck, Tom & Montalto, Valentina & Saisana, Michaela, 2021. "Benchmarking culture in Europe: A data envelopment analysis approach to identify city-specific strengths," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(2), pages 584-597.
    46. Dutuit, Yves & Rauzy, Antoine, 2015. "On the extension of Importance Measures to complex components," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 161-168.
    47. Corrado Lo Storto, 2018. "Efficiency, Conflicting Goals and Trade-Offs: A Nonparametric Analysis of the Water and Wastewater Service Industry in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, March.
    48. Cazals, Catherine & Florens, Jean-Pierre & Simar, Leopold, 2002. "Nonparametric frontier estimation: a robust approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-25, January.
    49. De Witte, Kristof & Schiltz, Fritz, 2018. "Measuring and explaining organizational effectiveness of school districts: Evidence from a robust and conditional Benefit-of-the-Doubt approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 1172-1181.
    50. Sanford Berg & Chen Lin, 2008. "Consistency in performance rankings: the Peru water sector," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 793-805.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pereira, Miguel Alves & Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "A regulatory robust conditional approach to measuring the efficiency of wholesale water supply and wastewater treatment services," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Nóvoa, Henriqueta & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "Performance analytics for regulation in retail water utilities: Guiding asset management by identifying peers and targets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Nóvoa, Henriqueta & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "Performance analytics for regulation in retail water utilities: Guiding asset management by identifying peers and targets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Ramon Sala-Garrido & Manuel Mocholí-Arce & María Molinos-Senante, 2021. "Assessing the Quality of Service of Water Companies: a ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ Composite Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 371-387, May.
    3. Mergoni, Anna & D'Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura, 2022. "A composite indicator for measuring the environmental performance of water, wastewater, and solid waste utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. D’Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura & Romano, Giulia, 2021. "Environmental sustainability and service quality beyond economic and financial indicators: A performance evaluation of Italian water utilities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. D’Inverno, Giovanna & De Witte, Kristof, 2020. "Service level provision in municipalities: A flexible directional distance composite indicator," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1129-1141.
    6. D'Inverno, Giovanna & Moesen, Wim & De Witte, Kristof, 2022. "Local government size and service level provision. Evidence from conditional non-parametric analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Tourinho, Marco & Santos, Paulo Rosa & Pinto, Francisco Taveira & Camanho, Ana S., 2022. "Performance assessment of water services in Brazilian municipalities: An integrated view of efficiency and access," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Pereira, Miguel Alves & Vilarinho, Hermilio & D’Inverno, Giovanna & Camanho, Ana S., 2023. "A regulatory robust conditional approach to measuring the efficiency of wholesale water supply and wastewater treatment services," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Kalinichenko, Olena & Amado, Carla A.F. & Santos, Sérgio P., 2022. "Exploring the potential of Data Envelopment Analysis for enhancing pay-for-performance programme design in primary health care," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(3), pages 1084-1100.
    10. Henriques, Alda A. & Camanho, Ana S. & Amorim, Pedro & Silva, Jaime G., 2020. "Performance benchmarking using composite indicators to support regulation of the Portuguese wastewater sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Alda A. Henriques & Milton Fontes & Ana S. Camanho & Giovanna D’Inverno & Pedro Amorim & Jaime Gabriel Silva, 2022. "Performance evaluation of problematic samples: a robust nonparametric approach for wastewater treatment plants," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 193-220, August.
    12. Fusco, Elisa & Vidoli, Francesco & Sahoo, Biresh K., 2018. "Spatial heterogeneity in composite indicator: A methodological proposal," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Giménez, Víctor & Prior, Diego & Thieme, Claudio & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2024. "International comparisons of COVID-19 pandemic management: What can be learned from activity analysis techniques?," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    14. Eni Dardha & Nicky Rogge, 2020. "How's Life in Your Region? Measuring Regional Material Living Conditions, Quality of Life and Subjective Well-Being in OECD Countries Using a Robust, Conditional Benefit-of-the-Doubt Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 1015-1073, October.
    15. Dovile Stumbriene & Ana S. Camanho & Audrone Jakaitiene, 2020. "The performance of education systems in the light of Europe 2020 strategy," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 577-608, May.
    16. Rogge, Nicky & De Jaeger, Simon & Lavigne, Carolien, 2017. "Waste Performance of NUTS 2-regions in the EU: A Conditional Directional Distance Benefit-of-the-Doubt Model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 19-32.
    17. Rogge, Nicky & Archer, Geoffrey, 2021. "Measuring and analyzing country change in establishing ease of doing business using a revised version of World Bank's ease of doing business index," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 290(1), pages 373-385.
    18. Vidoli, F.; & Fusco, E.; & Pignataro, G.; & Guccio, C.;, 2023. "Multi-directional Robust Benefit of the Doubt model: a comprehensive measure for the quality of health care in OECD countries," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 23/14, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Cordero, José Manuel & Alonso-Morán, Edurne & Nuño-Solinis, Roberto & Orueta, Juan F. & Arce, Regina Sauto, 2015. "Efficiency assessment of primary care providers: A conditional nonparametric approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 235-244.
    20. Amado, Carla A.F. & São José, José M.S. & Santos, Sérgio P., 2016. "Measuring active ageing: A Data Envelopment Analysis approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(1), pages 207-223.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:87:y:2023:i:pa:s0038012123000459. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.