Maintenance, repair, and operations, or put, MRO, are a set of services and activities required for any company’s smooth running. The MRO market has a significant impact on the growth of a company and global importance. As predicted, the market will reach a value of 964.62 billion USD by 2028.
They include services used in the production and maintenance process of a plant, such as spare parts, safety gears (masks, PPE kits, gloves, and other safety measures), tools, office supplies, and janitorial computers/laptops, and even cleaning equipment.
Although they are used in production and management and are essential for the company’s functioning, they are not directly involved in the production process. For instance, consider an electrical equipment production plant. The end product of the production unit is the electrical equipment.
Still, various other services and activities are carried out on a day-to-day basis to facilitate production. The transportation department deals with the importing of raw materials and exporting the final product.
Workers use tools and machinery essential for production, which uses machine oils, lubricants, and other accessories required for machinery’s functioning.
Office workers use stationery items such as papers, clips, ink, tapes, cleaning, and other equipment needed for the maintenance department. Every one of these contributes to the production but is not directly involved in the process. All these services together constitute the MRO.
Different types of MRO
Since the MRO market comes to application in different areas, they can be classified based on that.
1. Infrastructure maintenance and repair: These activities are related to the maintenance and repair of infrastructure and furniture, including doors, windows, tables, and chairs. They demand the availability of tools and equipment and human or machine assistance for the repairing process.
2. Machinery maintenance: There is always a scope of fault in the machinery unit as they consist of machines having moving parts. A defect in the production unit cannot be kept aside for long since it affects the production efficiency. They require immediate addressing. A dedicated team with handy tools and equipment for rectifying problems in the machinery department has great importance.
3. Handling Services and maintenance: Material handling within the production unit has become easier with implementing conveyor systems and other automated equipment. Raw materials to the production unit to the final product to the packaging section require internal material transportation from beginning to end.
A fault in any of the conveyor systems causes the whole production system to slow down, totally undesired. Thus, handling service maintenance has the same importance as that of production unit maintenance.
4.Stationary Consumables and appliances: Stationery items used in office and packing sections such as glue, markers, pens, ink, clips, etc., cleaning materials and equipment such as mop, brooms, wipes, and protection equipment are very much essential.
Significance of MRO with Ai powered procurement productivity suit
In a world driven by technology, the companies and plants aim for more innovative ways to handle the maintenance and repair operations, using artificial intelligence or Ai for the functions. The Ai powered software uses advanced sensors for collecting and managing data.
The technology also benefits the user by alerting them about upcoming obstacles. Thus making the plant prepared with appropriate measures to repair the errors. Services provided by procurement intelligence and supplier solutions such as Beroe come with Ai to clear all the queries and provide data related to MRO.
Ai powered software helps the plant by informing them about frequent changes happening around the market, details of the supplier, contact details, data on purchase orders, tracking, etc. Based on the nature and need of the company, it works efficiently by identifying suitable suppliers.
It inspects all aspects such as the cost, services rendered, certification and authenticity, and the supplier’s location. When it comes to supply, there are several factors to consider. The Ai gathers all the information related to supply and makes sure that none of the factors affects the supply.
As already mentioned, it handles risk by analyzing the potential risk factors and finding the best possible methods to rectify them. Softwares of this sort collect information from various sources such as researchers, suppliers, distributors, journals and databases, etc.
With the collected data, it evaluates the performance of the user plant in comparison with peer plants. Thus it helps the user to boost their performance and productivity based on the results. The multiple sensors in the Ai monitor production and manage maintenance using the data collected.
For the best maintenance, repair, and operations, it is high time that the plants consider Ai-powered software. Instead of focusing on short-term maintenance services, it is vital to switch over to long-term services such as Ai that are more reliable.