The analysis spans third quarter of 2016 to second quarter 2020. Over the years there have been almost 60 CSIA member companies contributing financial and operational data in the Pulse survey.

Chicago - The Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) is pleased to announce the release of a report analysis - "Leading Pack vs the Rest - A Data Driven Story". Twenty-six CSIA member companies have submitted their metrics every quarter for the last four years, and 20 of them for over five years. This report is an analysis of those 26 companies and is designed to convey what "good" looks like across the industry of control system integrators. The analysis spans third quarter of 2016 to second quarter 2020. Over the years there have been almost 60 CSIA member companies contributing financial and operational data in the Pulse survey.

Jose Rivera, CSIA CEO explained, "Benchmarking of key financial and operational indicators is key for continuous improvement of any business. Access to system integrator specific data is hard, if not impossible to find. CSIA has stepped in to fill the void. Over the past years of dedicated volunteer effort and the Pulse benchmarking program, CSIA has provided participating system integration members with valuable and realistic benchmarking data". CSIA hopes this report will spur interesting conversations during planning seasons. Rivera adds, "The analyzed period includes the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect changes to these numbers and count on our Pulse program to track them."

The following summarizes the observations:

• Some companies have performed well and shown consistent revenue growth.
• Leading pack companies continue to improve operational efficiency as company size increased.
• While EBITDA has decreased, it has remained positive on average. A group of companies show revenue growth and good EBITDA consistently.
• Non-labor revenue is a significant consideration in the performance of the leading pack.
• There is room to improve especially on the utilization metric.

CSIA offers its financial benchmarking program, CSIA Pulse, to its members. CSIA Pulse is designed to provide easy access to relevant member-wide metrics to help business owners and management set realistic targets to improve company operations. CSIA Pulse calculates utilization based on hours and dollars, revenue per total and billable employee, days cash on-hand, labor multiplier and days in backlog. This program is administered by CSIA and the data is managed by a third party in a secure and confidential repository.

Additional thanks and appreciation to Rockwell Automation for their financial support of this paper and the CSIA Benchmarking Committee.

About CSIA: Founded in 1994, the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) is a not-for-profit, global trade association that seeks to advance the industry of control system integration. Control system integrators use their engineering, technical and business skills to help manufacturers and others automate their industrial equipment and systems in such industries as food and beverage, oil and gas, water and wastewater, packaging and handling, mining, defense, automotive, aerospace, chemical and life sciences, and more. CSIA helps members improve their business skills, provides a forum to share industry expertise and promotes the benefits of hiring a certified control system integrator. CSIA has more than 500 member companies in 35 countries. CSIA also hosts the Industrial Automation Exchange to connect manufacturers and others with the system integrators and industry suppliers who can meet their automation needs.