How a remote site could cut emergency freight and eliminate the annual stocktake.

The situation

A mining operation runs a maintenance storeroom at a remote site, far from the nearest regional town. The storeroom holds over 300 SKUs of bearings, seals, filters, fittings, and electrical components. Stock records are maintained in a spreadsheet and updated manually — when anyone remembers to do it.

The maintenance planner relies on technicians to report what they take. In practice, parts are drawn during urgent breakdowns and the paperwork happens later, if at all. The spreadsheet is rarely accurate.

The challenge

Twice in the past year, a critical part was shown as "in stock" but was not on the shelf. Both times, the part had to be air-freighted to site at significant cost — not because the part was expensive, but because the freight was, and the machine sat idle while waiting.

A typical annual stocktake requires two people for several days, during which they are unavailable for maintenance work. The result is accurate for a moment, then drifts immediately as parts are consumed without being recorded.

The solution

With scales under the highest-value and highest-turnover bins, a Gateway connects the chain to the site network. The maintenance planner accesses stock levels from the cloud portal in the site office — or from home, or from another site entirely.

Low-stock alerts flag bins that fall below their minimum level. Consumption data shows how fast each part is used, allowing reorder points to be set on actual usage rather than on guesswork or memory.

Expected outcomes

Emergency freight incidents drop because low stock is visible well before a bin reaches zero. The maintenance planner checks stock levels from the office each morning without walking to the storeroom.

The annual stocktake is replaced by a live dashboard that is always current. The people who previously spent days counting now spend that time maintaining equipment. Consumption data is used to adjust reorder quantities seasonally, reducing both stock-outs and excess inventory.