Statistics
MRO, Inventory & Procurement Statistics (2026)
Last updated July 2026
The short answer
Excess and obsolete inventory runs 15–25% of MRO stock and costs about 25% of its value a year to hold. Maverick spend leaks 20–30% of indirect procurement, manual RFQs take 3–4 days (versus under 2 hours automated), and scrapping surplus recovers only 5–15% of cost. AI can cut inventory 20–30% while holding service. The numbers below are sourced and cited.
Excess & obsolete inventory
- ~25% / year
- Excess and obsolete inventory costs the typical distributor about 25% of its value every year in storage, shrinkage, and cost of capital. Industrial Supply Magazine
- 15–25%
- 15–25% of MRO inventory is typically excess or obsolete because of service-level buffers and one-time buys. R4 / MRO benchmarks
- 20–30% / year
- Inventory carrying cost typically runs 20–30% of inventory value per year (often 25–40% for wholesale distributors). Institute for Supply Management (via NetSuite)
Working capital, turns & DSI
- 20–30% / year
- Inventory carrying cost typically runs 20–30% of inventory value per year (often 25–40% for wholesale distributors). Institute for Supply Management (via NetSuite)
- 61–90 days
- The most common days-of-supply band for wholesale distribution is 61–90 days, reported by about a third of firms. Phocas Software
- $1.77T
- Inventory distortion — stockouts plus overstock — cost an estimated $1.77 trillion in 2023, about 7.2% of retail sales. Planster / IHL
Procurement, RFQs & spend
- 20–30%
- 20–30% of indirect spend leaks to maverick, off-contract buying. McKinsey (via GEP)
- 10 days
- Top-performing procurement teams reach a 10-day procure-to-pay cycle versus roughly two weeks at the median. APQC (via SDCExec)
- days → under 2 hours
- Manual RFQ cycles of 3–4 days can be compressed to under two hours with structured automation. Elisa IndustriQ
- 5–10% of COGS, 70–80% of POs
- MRO is only 5–10% of COGS but 70–80% of all procurement transactions — a disproportionate process cost. Centerpoint Group
- 3.2×
- Procurement 'Digital Masters' see 3.2× GenAI ROI versus 1.5× for followers, and allocate up to 24% of budget to procurement technology. Deloitte 2025 Global CPO Survey
Surplus & asset recovery
AI in distribution & operations
- 20–30%
- AI-driven optimization can cut inventory 20–30% while holding service levels, and reduce forecasting error up to 50%. Epicor / MDM
- 83%
- 83% of distribution executives have implemented AI in at least one function, up from 35% in 2023. Epicor
From Maintained's own analysis (anonymized)
De-identified aggregates from an analysis of ~11,000 surplus MRO and industrial line items across six facilities:
- ~9% of surplus items carry a high-confidence, invoice-backed value — yet they hold roughly 40% of total value.
- ~79% of items had no price comparable and had to be modeled.
- Fair market value runs 20–50% below reference price by category.
- The top ~1% of line items hold roughly 37% of total value.
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