Background
Mining organizations rarely struggle because spare parts don’t exist. They struggle because the right parts aren’t visible when and where they’re needed. For this global mining organization, inventory decisions were being made mine by mine, without a clear view into duplication, excess stock, or hidden risk across the network.
What followed was a shift from fragmented, site-level decision-making to enterprise-wide inventory intelligence.
key results at a glance
$96.8M
Identified Inventory Opportunity
17 Sites Live
$550K
Verified Value
1st Month of Go-Live
1000s
Materials Reviewed & Optimized
$69M
Parallel Deployment Value
27 Sites in UAT
Industry Context
Mining operations face heavy component wear, remote locations, and large mobile assets that make MRO inventory both critical and difficult to manage.
Long lead times and asset criticality increase the cost of inventory mistakes, while limited visibility across sites often hides excess inventory and risk.
The Challenge
The organization faced several structural challenges limiting its ability to optimize MRO inventory at scale:
- No standardized parts criticality methodology to drive service and stocking levels
- Fragmented inventory data spread across multiple ERP systems
- Limited visibility into over-max inventory positions, inventory risk, and material duplication across mines
- Manual, siloed, and inconsistent optimization efforts across procurement, maintenance, and operations teams
These challenges resulted in excess working capital tied up in inventory while still leaving the business exposed to downtime risk.
The Solution
The organization implemented a unified platform to streamline inventory optimization and decisioning across its mining network. This approach enabled:
- Standardized parts criticality across sites
- Identification and reduction of over-max inventory positions
- Stocking policy optimization aligned to operational risk
- Material de-duplication across mines
- Purchasing optimization and improved sourcing decisions
- Identification and mitigation of inventory risk positions
- Rebalanced service levels for critical spares
- Network optimization and parts pooling
- Inactive inventory transfers across locations
Inventory decisions moved from local assumptions to data-driven, enterprise-level governance.
Outcome
-
$96.8M in identified inventory value
across 17 live sites - $550K in verified value within the first month of go-live
- Thousands of materials reviewed and optimized
- $69M in additional identified value through a parallel deployment across 27 sites in UAT
How Verusen Supports MRO Inventory Optimization in Mining
Mining environments introduce challenges that generic inventory tools struggle to address – remote operations, inconsistent data quality, and high variability in asset criticality. Verusen’s MRO inventory optimization platform is designed to work directly with existing mining inventory data, unifying materials information across sites and systems without requiring a traditional data cleanse.
By applying AI-driven analysis to real-world mining inventory data, Verusen helps teams identify excess stock, surface hidden risk positions, and standardize criticality decisions across geographically dispersed operations. This enables mining organizations to reduce working capital exposure while maintaining confidence in spare parts availability for critical assets.
Typical Improvements Mining Organizations Can Expect
What improvement you can expect for your mining business:
- Average of 10–20% working capital optimization tied to excess and duplicated MRO inventory
- Improved availability of critical spares across remote and asset-intensive operations
- Reduction of excess and obsolete inventory across mine sites
- Easier identification and reuse of existing parts instead of emergency purchasing
- Standardization of MRO inventory procurement and management processes across sites
- Consolidation of MRO data into a single view across multiple ERPs and EAMs
- Faster onboarding using existing MRO inventory data, without a traditional data cleanse
Ready to See What MRO Inventory Optimization Could Look Like for Your Mining Operations?
See how your existing MRO inventory data could be used to identify excess stock, reduce working capital, and improve availability for critical mining assets.
Request a custom mining inventory assessment
Tailored to your site network.
Calculate Savings
Estimate your potential ROI and savings
Frequently Asked Questions
What is MRO inventory optimization in mining?
MRO inventory optimization in mining focuses on ensuring the right spare parts are available for critical assets while reducing excess inventory tied up across remote sites.
How does AI help reduce mining inventory costs?
AI analyzes inventory usage patterns, lead times, and asset criticality to identify excess stock, duplication, and risk positions that traditional rules-based systems often miss.
Can inventory optimization reduce downtime risk in mining operations?
Yes. By improving visibility into critical spares and standardizing stocking decisions, organizations can reduce emergency sourcing and improve maintenance readiness without increasing downtime risk.