Benchmarking Reliability & Maintenance (RAM)
Optimize your reliability & maintenance strategy. Uncover hidden opportunities to improve production operations and enhance profitability and availability.
Oil price volatility is beyond your control. Your reliability and maintenance strategy is not.
In an environment of geopolitical instability and market uncertainty, operational reliability and production flexibility are strategically critical. Short-term maintenance cuts lead to long-term reliability degradation, increased unplanned maintenance, and production loss. Don't let deferred maintenance limit your ability to maximize production now and in the future.
Solomon’s International Study of Plant Reliability & Maintenance Effectiveness (RAM Study) is an in-depth assessment of your sites’ reliability and maintenance (RAM) practices, strategies, and culture that goes beyond cost and availability metrics. The RAM Study uncovers valuable insights to enhance profitability, strengthen operations, optimize strategies, and drive cultural excellence regardless of current performance. Do you have a foundation for sustained success or are programmatic issues limiting your performance?
Leverage insight from a vetted, proprietary performance database of >1,500 sites and >10,000 production units worldwide.
- Industry (chemicals or refining)
- Manufactured Product (olefin, aromatics, agricultural chemicals, crude units, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) units, hydro-heaters, paper, etc.)
- Performance Levels (based on cost, reliability, and RAM Effectiveness Index (RAM EI))
- Geographic Regions (compared to manufacturers in the same or similar region)
- Custom peer groups available upon request
- How does my turnaround scope compare to similar units like mine?
- How reliable are my facilities compared to top-reliability performers?
- How do my scheduled and unscheduled downtimes and rate reductions compare to my peers?
- How does my workforce size and productivity compare to my peers?
- Do my units have the same engineering resources assigned to address reliability issues like mine?
- How effective is my RAM program in driving reliability outcomes?
- How reactive or proactive are my facilities compared to my peers?
- How do my labor, materials, and indirect expenses compare to my peers?
- How efficient and effective are my turnarounds?
- How do my reliability and maintenance work processes compare?
- Where are my centers of excellence and how can I leverage them internally?
- Where are our company, sites, and units on our reliability journey?
- How effective are our corporate, site, and unit RAM strategies?
Our Approach
An optimized reliability strategy and proactive maintenance culture leads to high mechanical availability, reduced unplanned events, and low maintenance spending.
- Evaluate reliability (based on monetized downtime) and maintenance performance (maintenance and reliability spending) metrics of production operations.
- Analyze the primary casual factors impacting plant RAM effectiveness.
- Assess the extent to which the RAM strategy for your production unit is optimized.
- Production unit/site characteristics and processes are analyzed and compared to process family peers and top performers to better prioritize improvement efforts.
- Establish the approximate cash value of realistic performance improvement to set achievable improvement targets.
- Study scope covers upstream, refining, petrochemicals, utilities, and other industrial segments.
- Key study features include cost insights, turnaround metrics, reliability processes, RAM strategy effectiveness, and craft skill/training.
Best performers achieve high reliability and availability at a low cost; poor performers suffer from high costs with low reliability and availability. The difference between the best and worst performers shows that an optimized RAM strategy can be worth 7% of your Plant Replacement Value (PRV).
To navigate oil price volatility, you should continuously seek to optimize your RAM strategy.
Client Testimonials
“While we had always benchmarked internally, we used the results of the RAM Study to challenge our site to achieve Q1 performance and we did it! Since the RAM Study is based on real operating data, it brought the credibility needed to motivate our workforce. Thanks Solomon!” RELIABIITY MANAGER, REFINING
“The RAM Study was very valuable in helping see this site in a different way. We had focused on some cost metrics which may have hurt our reliability performance. Seeing the best performers are those that achieve the optimum in cost and reliability was helpful.” VP, CHEMICAL FACILITY
“Even though we had good overall KPI’s, the RAM Study exposed some foundational practices we need to improve on for ensuring continued success.” SITE MANAGER, REFINING
The Value
WHY JOIN THE RAM STUDY- Identify, quantify & optimize areas for improved reliability & maintenance performance and sustainable reliability culture.
- Receive performance rankings on a global, regional, and peer group basis for all performance areas.
- Assess and understand RAM performance for routine, turnaround, equipment, and organizational staffing.
- Confirm performance capabilities across the site, production unit & company.
- Identify competitive position within the industry.
- Provide justifications for capital investment & staffing plans.
- Establish & track progress of performance targets.
- Maximize profitability.
Learn How You Can Participate
Whether you are a large or small organization, participating in the RAM Study is a valuable exercise that yields insight into the performance, strategy, and culture of top performers. Assess your RAM strategy and performance against peers with similar processes, geographies, and complexities. RAM Study results monetize your gaps against Q1 performers, enabling you to set challenging but achievable improvement targets. Receive insight into your sites’ culture to determine if it is cost- or reliability-focused. Learn more about joining other oil and gas industry members who participate in the RAM Study to guide them to higher performance excellence.
A Foundation for Effective Comparative Performance Analysis and Decision Support
We prioritize the integrity and confidentiality of participant-submitted data and rigorously review that data before benchmarking begins. Then, we employ our normalization process and benchmarking methodology to provide valuable and trusted peer group comparisons that deliver meaningful KPIs. Finally, our staff of senior consultants apply their deep industry experience to develop practical insight and recommendations to enable your success.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
A: The International Study of Plant Reliability & Maintenance Effectiveness (RAM Study) is an in-depth analysis that goes beyond cost and availability metrics and deep dives into your reliability and maintenance (RAM) practices, strategies, and culture to evaluate your characteristics against those of the top performers. The study uses proprietary data to uncover performance gaps and make informed business decisions.
The purpose of Solomon’s RAM Study is to:
- Assess the extent to which the maintenance strategy for a production unit is optimized.
- Identify the characteristics and processes of the client’s Production Unit and compare these to the characteristics and processes of leading performers.
- Provide focus areas for further optimization of the maintenance strategy of the client’s production unit.
- Establish the approximate cash value of realistic performance improvement, and in so doing, provide information to enable the client’s production unit to set challenging but achievable improvement targets.
A: The RAM Study is designed to assess the extent to which your reliability and maintenance strategy for a production unit is optimized. After completing the RAM Study and receiving your results, you get the insight needed to understand what you are doing well and what operational gaps require attention and present your biggest opportunities to improve. A maintenance strategy is considered optimum for production units that achieve and sustain the minimization of the sum of:
- Maintenance expenditure.
- Value of lost production associated directly with lack of maintenance (production unit breakdowns).
- Value of lost production associated directly with maintenance (production unit overhauls or turnarounds).
After completing the RAM Study and receiving your study results, you will understand what is being doing well and observe operational gaps that require attention and present the biggest opportunities to improve.
The best performers routinely participate in the study to understand if their strategies are effective.
A: The difference between the best and worst performers shows an optimized reliability and maintenance strategy can be worth 7% of your Plant Replacement Value (PRV). In the short term, cost cutting is easy, but reliability improvements ensure true, long-term profitability and lead to sustainable maintenance cost reductions. This reliability-focused strategy improves the entire organization from top to bottom.
PRV = plant replacement value; Q1 = first quartile (best); Q2 = second quartile; Q3 = third quartile; Q4 = fourth quartile (poorest); RAM EI = Reliability and Maintenance Effectiveness Index
The study delivers invaluable information detailing the performance of upstream, refining, petrochemicals, utilities, and other industrial segments. The RAM Study includes performance information on RAM for routine, turnaround, equipment performance, and organizational staffing. This data is included in the results files provided to the client.
A: The results allow you to compare your performance to process family peer groups, as well as your industry segment.
A: Client performance gaps are monetized for both maintenance and production losses. This monetization allows the client to know the value of gap closure efforts. Gaps are segmented into specific categories, allowing the client to focus on the most value-added efforts.
A: More than 75% of participants are repeat clients. Repeat participation helps validate adjustments made in the past, adjust to industry movements, and understand the impact of market shifting events in different geographies. Top performers continue to raise the bar by focusing on the most value-added opportunities demonstrated in the results of the study.
A: Absolutely. The RAM Study complements other Solomon studies by digging deeper into many areas, including cultural behaviors to determine reactive versus proactive characteristics and whether a company focuses on reliability or cost cutting.
A: Solomon looks at the underlying behaviors that generate consistent high reliability performance. Some of these topics include proactive versus reactive work, projects with life cycle cost analysis, resolution of “bad actor” lists, and root cause analysis performed, along with work execution practices for routine and turnaround maintenance, plus many more.
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