MRO Supply Chain Optimization: How Leading Manufacturers Eliminate Waste and Cut Downtime
The Silent Threat Inside Industrial Supply Chains
Your MRO supply chain isn’t just a background function. For most enterprise manufacturers, it’s a blind spot. And blind spots are dangerous.
Siloed data across business units, fragmented ERP systems, and reactive procurement practices have become the default – costing millions in wasted spend, excess inventory, and avoidable downtime.
As supply chains grow more complex, these inefficiencies are no longer tolerable. Leading industrial manufacturers are taking control by unifying their MRO and OEM strategies, using AI to build more resilient, responsive operations.
Here’s how.
What’s Broken in Today’s MRO Supply Chains
Despite managing billions in assets, many industrial supply chains still operate in the dark when it comes to MRO. The core problems:
- Multiple ERPs with no cross-system visibility
- Redundant or excess inventory tied up in working capital
- Procurement driven by fire drills, not forecasting
- Decentralized processes with zero standardization
- No clear parts criticality framework across plants
These inefficiencies don’t just bloat inventory – they create downtime risk. A single stockout on a critical spare can shut down a $10M production line.
And when every plant does its own thing, procurement teams are forced to navigate multiple vendor contracts, inconsistent data, and competing priorities.
The Financial Impact of MRO Supply Chain Inefficiencies
Let’s make it real. Consider a manufacturer with $100M in MRO inventory. Just 10% in excess means $10M locked up in unnecessary stock – money that could be freed up for capital projects or margin protection.
Add to that the 20-25% annual carrying cost (storage, insurance, obsolescence), and you’re burning $2-2.5M every year on stock you may never use.
And then there’s downtime. One unplanned outage can cost $10,000 to $250,000 per hour, depending on the asset. If that outage was caused by a missing part you actually had in another plant, the cost isn’t just operational – it’s reputational.
From Chaos to Control: The AI Advantage
Forward-thinking teams are rethinking their MRO supply chain strategy around one key principle: visibility.
That doesn’t mean a new ERP. It means a unified layer that connects and analyzes all MRO material data – regardless of system, site, or format.
AI-driven material management platforms ingest “as-is” data from SAP, Oracle, Maximo, Infor and more. The result: centralized visibility, harmonized data, and predictive insights.
With this infrastructure in place, manufacturers can:
- Identify and eliminate duplicate SKUs
- Shift from reactive to predictive stocking
- Consolidate vendors and boost compliance
- Optimize procurement and carrying costs
- Create a unified source of truth across sites and functions
This is how you build resilience into your operations – without a massive ERP overhaul.
Standardizing Parts Criticality: A Hidden Accelerator
One of the most overlooked levers in MRO strategy is parts criticality.
Without a standardized, cross-site methodology to rank part importance, most teams either overstock out of fear or understock based on poor data.
AI platforms can help manufacturers define and apply criticality scores across their network, ensuring stocking policies match actual asset impact. This means:
- Critical spares are never stocked out
- Low-impact items aren’t overstocked unnecessarily
- Maintenance teams trust the system instead of hoarding parts
This also improves cross-functional collaboration – procurement now knows which parts must be prioritized, and finance understands which inventory is truly strategic.
Case Study: Global Gold Mining Leader
One of the world’s largest gold mining companies, operating across six mines, faced a complex MRO challenge. Disconnected systems, excess inventory, and no standardized approach to parts criticality left millions stranded in working capital.
They needed to:
- Identify and burn down overmax inventory positions
- Standardize parts criticality methodology
- Unify visibility across systems and mines
After implementing Verusen’s AI-powered MRO optimization platform:
- They launched material de-duplication and stocking policy optimization across all mines
- Enabled network-level optimization and parts pooling, avoiding unnecessary purchases
- Gained visibility across disparate data sets without cleansing
Impact:
- $96.8M in MRO inventory savings opportunities identified
- $40.1M in immediate Year 1 cash savings through inventory burndown and spend avoidance
- $50.5M from stocking policy improvements, $19.4M from network optimization, $3.9M from material de-duplication
- Significant reduction in risk of stockouts, with optimized policies across the entire network
And most importantly, the company saw these results beginning within the first 90 days.
Beyond Inventory: Aligning Procurement, Ops, and IT
A modern MRO supply chain strategy isn’t just about parts. It’s about people, processes, and platforms.
Many breakdowns happen because these functions operate in silos:
- Procurement is measured on cost savings
- Maintenance is measured on uptime
- IT is buried in system integrations
When AI platforms unify data, they also unify objectives. Now everyone is working from the same playbook:
- Maintenance sees where critical parts are available
- Procurement sees supplier compliance and pricing trends
- IT doesn’t have to manually clean and reconcile data
This alignment is what turns cost savings into sustained operational performance.
FAQs: What Leaders Need to Know Before Acting
How do we get visibility if we run multiple ERP systems?
You don’t need to replace your ERP. Platforms like Verusen ingest “as-is” data from SAP, Oracle, Maximo, and others to create a single source of truth – no data cleanse required.
How fast can we expect results?
Many enterprise manufacturers begin realizing value in under 90 days. Early impact includes identifying duplicate materials, reducing stockout risks, and streamlining procurement.
What if our data is a mess?
It likely is – and that’s expected. Verusen’s AI platform is built to work with messy, unstructured, siloed MRO data across systems.
Will this disrupt our current procurement operations?
No. It enhances them. Teams gain better insights, cleaner supplier data, and clearer sourcing opportunities without overhauling workflows.
Ready to Fix Your MRO Supply Chain?
If your MRO supply chain feels like a black hole – with money vanishing and risks compounding – it’s time to shift from reactive firefighting to predictive control.
Verusen helps Fortune 1000 manufacturers unify MRO data, reduce inventory costs, and avoid stockouts – without replacing their ERP.
Book a custom inventory optimization assessment and see how your organization compares.