Investments in production equipment are made to generate desired production benefit. This work examines how benefit generally is defined and to what extent the benefit is well defined when equipment investments are made. The study revealed that benefit from investments often is unclearly or inconsistently defined, with a narrow system view and often has a weak correlation with benefit for a production system with broader boundaries. This could hamper the possibility to capitalize on industrial trends that indicate a shift in focus, from products, to the benefit utilization of the products can deliver.