研究使领先组织高效、同时能够提供高质量服务的实践，可以发现巨大的改进潜力。悉尼水务局（SWB）已经接受了一项基于“最佳实践”研究和全球多个组织的基准测试的改革计划。本文介绍了这项研究的主要结果。确定“最佳实践”的实践、系统和技术是在各组织的合作下发现的，以达到指定的绩效水平。在某些情况下，这涉及水和废水行业以外的组织。SWB将实施的变革影响深远，将研究领域的成本降低了30%，同时有利于客户服务和环境。 包括表格、数字。

Studying the practices that make leading organizations efficient and at the same time able to provide high-quality services can identify enormous potential for improvement. The Sydney Water Board (SWB) has embraced a program of change based on a study of "best practice" and benchmarking at a number of organizations worldwide. Key results of the study are presented here. The practices, systems, and technology that determine "best practice" were discovered with the cooperation of the organizations achieving a designated level of performance. In some cases, this involved organizations outside the water and wastewater industries. The changes that will be implemented at the SWB are far-reaching, reducing costs in the areas studied by as much as 30 percent, while benefiting customer service and the environment. Includes tables, figures.