Most organizations believe their reliability and maintenance performance is improving. The reality is that many are unknowingly falling behind their competition. Since 1996, Solomon’s International Plant Reliability and Maintenance Effectiveness (RAM Study) has helped organizations identify the true drivers of plant reliability and maintenance effectiveness. By evaluating key performance metrics across production assets, the RAM Study shows not only how well strategies are performing today, but where gaps exist that directly impact availability, cost, and ultimately profitability.

As industry expectations continue to rise, reliability and maintenance strategies must evolve at the same pace or risk falling behind. The challenge is not just identifying improvement opportunities but understanding whether those improvements are sufficient relative to competitors. This is where multi-year RAM benchmarking becomes critical, it moves beyond static assessment and provides a clear view of competitive trajectory.

THE DISADVANTAGE OF ONE-TIME BENCHMARKING

While any form of benchmarking, when based on validated comparisons, provides valuable insight, treating it as a one-time event creates a false sense of security. A single benchmark delivers a snapshot of performance, but it does not reveal whether that position is improving, stagnating, or deteriorating relative to peers.

One-time benchmarking can show:

  • Your current competitive position
  • Strengths in reliability and maintenance performance
  • Areas with improvement potential
  • Performance gaps at a specific point in time

What it cannot show:

  • Whether improvements are being sustained over time
  • Whether performance gains are keeping pace with competitors
  • Whether current improvements protect future competitiveness
  • The direction and speed of performance change

One-time benchmarking tells you where you are.
Multi-year benchmarking tells you where you’re headed — and whether you’re falling behind.

Relying on a single benchmark does not provide a clear view of continuous improvement or competitive positioning over time, both of which are critical to sustaining performance. Solomon’s data consistently shows that meaningful and sustainable reliability improvement takes time. Cultural change, process maturity, and execution discipline are built over multiple years, not achieved through isolated initiatives

An initial benchmark should be treated as a baseline, a starting position that provides a clear view of:

  • Where your organization stands relative to your competitors
  • Current areas of strength
  • High impact opportunity areas for improvement

THE POWER OF MULTI-YEAR BENCHMARKING

Once this baseline is established, the true value of the RAM Study emerges through repeat participation. Multi-year benchmarking transforms data into insight by revealing not just position, but performance trajectory.

  • Visibility into the real impact of change. Understand whether strategic initiatives are delivering meaningful results and whether those results are closing the gap or allowing competitors to pull further ahead. Multi-year benchmarking reveals not only direction of movement (improving or declining), but also the pace of that movement relative to industry peers.
  • Re-prioritization of highest-value opportunities. Each study highlights the areas with the greatest potential impact. Repeat benchmarking shows whether improvements in these areas are sufficient and whether competitors are improving faster in the same spaces, requiring recalibration of priorities.
  • Tracking transformation and enabling course correction. Transformational improvement in reliability and maintenance is inherently multi-year. Ongoing participation provides the data needed to track progress, validate decisions, and adjust course before performance gaps widen.

REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE: WHY BENCHMARKING ONCE ISN’T ENOUGH

A client benchmarked multiple plants and achieved strong results, ranking in the upper half of performers in overall RAM effectiveness. The study identified improvement opportunities in lost production due to turnaround inefficiency and equipment failure. Based on this snapshot, the organization appeared competitive and well-positioned.

  • Rather than stopping there, the client chose to participate again the following year. The results were revealing: competitive performance declined across key areas.
  • The gap to top performers widened.
  • Industry peers improved faster, outpacing their progress.

Despite making internal improvements, the organization was losing competitive ground, something that would have gone unnoticed without multi-year benchmarking. Without a second data point, leadership would have seen progress, but not the relative decline.

Key takeaway: Improvement in isolation is not enough. If competitors improve faster, performance is effectively declining. Without periodic benchmarking, organizations can only measure progress against themselves, not against the market.

BUILD ON YOUR INITIAL BASELINE – DON’T FALL BEHIND

Consistently benchmarking your reliability and maintenance performance enables both operational and cultural transformation. While a single snapshot shows you where you stand today, only multi-year participation provides a clear view of whether performance is improving at the pace required to remain competitive.

Don’t just assume improvement – prove it, measure it, and use it to guide decisions. Repeat participation keeps your organization aligned with performance trends and your competitive expectations, enabling you to adapt before gaps become material.

If you haven’t benchmarked in the last 2–3 years, you don’t know whether you’re still competitive.

Participate in our upcoming RAM Study to:

  • Build on your established baseline
  • Identify high-impact opportunities that remain unaddressed
  • Measure whether your improvements are keeping pace with competitors
  • Understand the real impact of your reliability and maintenance strategies
  • Gain the insight needed to sustain and accelerate performance

Benchmarking is not just about understanding where you are, it’s about ensuring you remain competitive in a rapidly evolving industry. Participate in the next RAM Study and gain the clarity needed to stay ahead.

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