Optimize your reliability & maintenance strategy and uncover hidden opportunities to improve production operations and enhance profitability and availability.
Achieving sustained high reliability is key to navigating the challenges of industry globalization, fuels demand destruction, and environmental sustainability. Are there opportunities to improve your reliability and maintenance effectiveness? Do you understand how the best performers consistently achieve high availability and low maintenance cost?
Solomon’s International Study of Plant Reliability and Maintenance Effectiveness Performance Analysis (RAM Study) unlocks valuable insights into your sites’ strategies to determine if you have a solid foundation for sustained success or if programmatic issues are preventing you from achieving the same level of success as better-performing peers.
Companies that participate in Solomon’s RAM Study typically realize an average return on investment (ROI) of 100 times the study cost, attained through ~10% closure of identified gaps. Leverage a vetted, proprietary performance database of >1,500 site and >10,000 production units worldwide.
- 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, due to RAM issues, 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?
- Industry (chemicals or refining)
- Manufactured Product (olefins, aromatics, agricultural chemicals, crude units, fluid catalytic cracking [FCC] units, hydro-heaters, paper, etc.)
- Performance Levels (based on cost, reliability, and Reliability Effectiveness Index [RAM EI])
- Geographic Regions (compared to manufacturers in the same or similar region)
- Custom peer groups available upon request
The RAM Study is designed to assess the extent to which your reliability and maintenance strategy is optimized and provide an in-depth analysis of your business profitability. Regardless of your current performance, RAM Study results uncover hidden opportunities that yield critical insights to enhance overall profitability and improve your operation’s performance, strategies, and culture.
Reliability and maintenance performance is a significant differentiator. Solomon’s 40+ years of benchmarking data proves that sustained high performance requires a clear and robust strategy focused on reliability. 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 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 RAM Study evaluates reliability (based on monetized downtime) and maintenance performance (maintenance and reliability spending) metrics of production operations, providing an in-depth analysis of the primary casual factors impacting plant reliability and maintenance effectiveness. Performance is analyzed and compared at the production unit level. The study works to identify production unit characteristics and processes and then compares that against peers in the same process family and against top performers. From staffing to overall performance, the RAM Study identifies targeted areas for improvement to help close gaps within your organization. RAM Study results further uncover areas to optimize reliability and maintenance strategies and establish the approximate cash value of realistic performance improvement.
Why Participate?
- Identify, quantify & optimize areas for improved reliability & maintenance performance.
- Confirm performance capabilities across the site, production unit & company.
- Understand performance compared to competition.
- Provide justifications for capital investment & staffing plans.
- Achieve a sustainable reliability culture.
- Add cash value to your business.
- Increase capacity without costly capital investment
- Set achievable improvement targets.
- Become more profitable.
Study Deliverables
Study participants receive the following:
- An opportunities report, which includes data tables, performance rankings, aggregated peer group results, detailed gap analyses, and historical trends.
- Economic gap analysis versus Q1/Q2 breakpoint performers.
- Performance rankings on a global, regional, and peer group basis for all performance areas.
- Executive summary presentation with actionable insight supported by study data.
- Document on how to get the most out of your RAM Study experience.
Performance is assessed across the following areas:
- Cost Insights
- Turnaround Metrics
- Reliability Processes
- RAM Strategy
- Craft Skill/Training
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
A: An in-depth analysis that goes beyond cost and availability metrics and deep dives into your reliability and maintenance 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 client’s 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.
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 those 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 results, you will understand what you are doing well and what operational gaps require attention and present your biggest opportunities to improve.
The best performers routinely participate in the study to understand if their strategies are effective.
A: 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 your process family peer group, 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.
.jpg)
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.
Data Quality, Benchmarking Methodology
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.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)