MRO Inventory Best Practices

Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) can be as much as 40 percent of an organization’s annual procurement budget. Despite this, many organizations don’t properly manage their spare parts inventory, leading to costly spot buys, missing or duplicate parts, and wasted man hours searching for the correct part in your storeroom.

Download our MRO inventory best practices checklist to learn how storeroom organization, segmented inventory, and other tips can reduce your inventory spend.

MRO is an acronym for maintenance, repair, and operations. The definition can be anything from valves, pumps, spare parts, lubricants, or anything else to produce a product. Typically, inventory and supplies are purchased on a regular basis, making proper MRO management important to manage costs.

Following MRO best practices leads to multiple benefits for organizations. First, it reduces unnecessary inventory costs by lowering potential duplicates, mitigates expensive spot buys, and limits excessive inventory levels. Second, standard operating procedures (SOPs) maintains consistency with your inventory stock by preventing discrepancies between what is shown in your system and what is in the storeroom. Developing SOPs offers consistency to your storeroom personnel across your organization while also expediting training for new personnel.

Finally, properly managing your inventory prevents an all too common issue organizations face: wasted manhours spent looking for a particular part either in a CMMS/EAM or on the floor in a storeroom.