How Healthy Is Your Spare Parts Data? What our MRO Value Scan Reveals
“If anybody in your organisation says there are no duplicates, bet €100 you’ll find some. At Bayer Berlin, we reduced materials from 63,000 to 48,000. That’s 20% duplication proven, not theoretical.”
Dirk Herbrich, Data Value Stream Lead for Acquire to Retire in CORE, Bayer AG (read the full case study here)
Most manufacturers know their spare parts data is not perfect
Most manufacturers suspect duplicate materials exist. They know some parts are obsolete. They see inventory levels growing, procurement costs increasing and teams spending too much time searching for the right part.
Increasingly, they are also facing another challenge: preparing their data for SAP S/4HANA migration.
ERP migrations force organisations to make decisions about the quality of their spare parts data. Which materials should be migrated? Which should be consolidated? Which are obsolete? And where are the biggest opportunities for simplification?
Without clear answers, migration projects become more complex, more expensive and more difficult to justify.
Before launching a spare parts optimisation initiative, decision-makers need clear answers:
- How bad is the data really?
- How many duplicate and obsolete materials exist?
- Which sites, categories or business units should be prioritised?
- What is the financial impact of improving the data?
- How much unnecessary complexity could be removed before migration?
- Is the opportunity large enough to justify action?
This is exactly what our MRO Value Scan is designed to answer.
What Is a MRO Value Scan?
The MRO Value Scan is an assessment of your spare parts catalogue based on data extracted from your ERP system.
It helps you understand the current quality, structure and optimisation potential of your spare parts data before committing to a larger project.
The objective is not to clean every material immediately.
The objective is to create visibility.
A MRO Value Scan gives you an initial view of duplicate materials, obsolete parts, stock value, data quality gaps and potential savings. It helps your team move from assumptions to evidence.
What Data Is Required?
The MRO Value Scan uses data that already exists in your ERP system.
Depending on your ERP landscape, this usually includes material master data, stock levels, stock values, material movements, supplier information, manufacturer information, purchasing data and planning parameters.
The process is designed to keep customer effort low while still providing a meaningful assessment of your spare parts landscape.
As a rule of thumb, the more data available for analysis, the more comprehensive the results. While a MRO Value Scan can already deliver valuable insights from a limited dataset, additional information such as purchasing history, supplier data or planning parameters allows SPARROW to identify further optimisation opportunities and produce more accurate ROI estimates.
In other words: you can start small, but richer data leads to deeper insights.
What Does the MRO Value Scan Reveal?
A MRO Value Scan does not only show whether your data is “good” or “bad”.
It shows where the issues are, how large they are and what they could mean financially.
1. How Large Is Your Spare Parts Landscape?
Many companies struggle to get a consolidated view of their spare parts catalogue across plants, regions and business units.
The MRO Value Scan creates a first baseline by analysing the size and structure of the spare parts landscape, including the number of active materials, stocked materials, total inventory value and the distribution of inventory across business units and regions.
This matters because optimisation starts with scope.
Before you can find the best ways to reduce inventory, remove duplicates or improve planning, you need to get a map of your spare parts landscape.
2. How Good Is Your Spare Parts Data?
Spare parts decisions are only as good as the data behind them.
If manufacturer information is missing, procurement may overlook alternative suppliers. If attributes are incomplete, parts become harder to find and duplicate materials harder to identify. If supplier data is inconsistent, sourcing decisions take longer and rely more heavily on individual knowledge than system intelligence.
The MRO Value Scan assesses key data quality indicators, including:
- manufacturer data availability
- supplier data availability
- attribute completeness
- variations in data quality across regions, business units and plants
The results provide a clear picture of where information gaps exist and where improvement efforts should be prioritised. Ultimately, the analysis helps organisations determine whether their spare parts data is fit for effective sourcing, inventory optimisation and future initiatives such as SAP S/4HANA migration.
In many cases, the analysis reveals significant differences in data quality across regions, business units and material categories, helping teams prioritise improvement efforts where they will deliver the greatest impact.
3. How Many Duplicate Materials Exist?
Duplicate materials are one of the clearest indicators of hidden waste in spare parts management.
The same part may exist under different material numbers, descriptions or supplier references. As a result, identical items are stocked, purchased and planned as if they were different materials.
In one project, SPARROW identified the same physical spare part under 17 different material records. What appeared to be 17 separate materials was, in reality, a single component hidden behind inconsistent descriptions and supplier information. Cases like this illustrate how duplicate materials accumulate over years of plant expansions, acquisitions and decentralised data maintenance.
Our MRO Value Scan identifies duplicate materials within the catalogue and quantifies the inventory value associated with them. It reveals where the same physical part exists under multiple records and where stock is held on duplicate entries, tying up working capital and inflating inventory levels.
For many organisations, duplicate elimination represents one of the fastest paths to inventory reduction, procurement savings and improved data quality.
4. Where Are Procurement Savings Hidden?
Our MRO Value Scan helps organisations understand whether they are paying a premium for spare parts procurement.
By analysing OEM sourcing patterns and comparing selected parts against market pricing, it provides an initial estimate of where procurement savings may exist and which categories warrant deeper investigation.
5. Where Can Inventory Be Optimised?
Many organisations still manage spare parts using static planning rules. Minimum and maximum stock levels may no longer reflect actual demand, criticality or supply conditions. Over time, this can lead to excess inventory, avoidable stock shortages and capital being tied up in parts that contribute little to operational resilience.
Our MRO Value Scan helps identify opportunities to improve inventory performance through better planning, cross-site visibility and inventory rationalisation. It provides an initial indication of where stock levels may be reduced, where pooling opportunities may exist and where planning practices could be improved.
The goal is not to hold less inventory at all costs. The goal is to hold the right inventory in the right place while maintaining availability when it matters most.
From Data Assessment to Business Case
Most manufacturers already know their spare parts data is imperfect. What they often lack is a clear understanding of the financial impact.
Our MRO Value Scan bridges that gap. By quantifying duplicate materials, data quality issues, inventory optimisation opportunities and sourcing potential, it transforms operational observations into measurable business value.
This allows organisations to prioritise initiatives, build stakeholder alignment and develop a fact-based business case for spare parts optimisation, SAP S/4HANA preparation or broader digital transformation programmes.
The outcome is simple: better decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions.
What Happens After the MRO Value Scan?
After the analysis, SPARROW presents the results and discusses the key findings, estimated savings potential and areas that offer the greatest opportunity for improvement.
Depending on the company, scope and engagement model, the results may also be reviewed directly in the SPARROW platform and exported for further internal use.
This allows teams to explore the findings in more detail, share results with stakeholders and build a fact-based business case for future optimisation initiatives.
The outcome is a clear understanding of the current state of the spare parts landscape, the scale of the opportunity and the potential return on further optimisation efforts.
No Commitment. Just Clarity.
Spare parts optimisation is no longer just a warehouse initiative. It is becoming a data foundation for more resilient maintenance, smarter procurement and more efficient working capital management.
The companies that move fastest will not be the ones with perfect data. They will be the ones that understand where their data stands today, where the biggest opportunities are hidden and which actions can deliver measurable impact first.
Our MRO Value Scan gives you that starting point.
It helps your teams assess the quality of your spare parts data, quantify hidden savings opportunities and build a stronger internal case for optimisation, whether you are preparing for SAP S/4HANA, reducing inventory or improving procurement performance.
Ready to see what your spare parts data is really costing you? Register for our MRO Value Scan and turn your ERP data into a measurable business case.
