Evolving the MRO supply chain
The maintenance-repair-operations (MRO) supply chain in key industries including Resources, Oil & Gas and Utilities has to date been the poor cousin to FMCG and Retail supply chains. Lagging in terms of capability, visibility, and profile within the organisation, MRO activity in general has been referred to ’as the last bastion of uncontrolled expense‘. Historically considered immaterial against the backdrop of significant capital investment projects or viewed as an unimportant back office function, the MRO supply chain has increasingly found itself on the executive agenda in the last three to five years. We now see - in some leading organisations – an ‘awakening’ as this function begins to mature and professionalise. Supply Chain leaders in this field will increasingly look to leverage a combination of established cross industry practices and take advantage of emerging technologies to deliver cost, inventory and risk reduction outcomes into their organisations. This thought piece will critique the common issues in the MRO supply chain, explore what better practices are currently encountered and offer our perspective on emerging practices that will shape the direction and effort of improvement initiatives for the next five to ten years.
