Working Capital Trapped in Stockpiles: The Quarry Problem That Live Inventory Is Solving

Walk through any Australian quarry yard and you will see working capital that nobody has priced. Stockpiles of crushed aggregate, sorted by grade and product type, represent months of extraction and processing effort. In theory, they are an asset. In practice, without accurate live measurement and per-grade pricing, they sit on the balance sheet as a bulk estimate rather than a managed inventory position.

The Stockpile Problem

Industry norms suggest that weeks of working capital are routinely frozen in unvalued quarry stockpiles. The root cause is the gap between how stockpiles are measured and how they are actually managed. Traditional monthly surveys produce a total volume figure. That figure is then converted to tonnage using a bulk density assumption, split across product grades using a production allocation, and valued at an average price. Every step introduces an assumption, and the final number is a plausible estimate rather than a reliable asset value.

For quarry operators managing their businesses as part of a larger group, this has balance sheet implications. Stock that cannot be reliably valued cannot be managed as working capital. Capital expenditure decisions, reserve depletion planning, and group cashflow management all suffer when the inventory number is a guess.

ProductsLive: Stock as a Balance Sheet Line

SiteLive's ProductsLive module addresses this by valuing every product grade on the pad at its current price, updated each time the stockpile is re-measured. Combined with autonomous daily drone surveys through DroneLive, the stockpile becomes a live balance sheet line rather than a monthly estimate. Every tonne is counted, every grade is priced, and the total working capital figure is updated before each morning shift.

Metromix, which has deployed the full QuarryLive platform through its partnership with SiteLive, uses this capability to manage its aggregate inventory as a genuine financial asset alongside its ready-mix operations. The farm-to-plate visibility that the platform provides, from extraction to concrete pour, means that inventory decisions and concrete supply decisions can be made from the same live data set.

Relevance for Queensland Construction

Queensland's construction sector, including major infrastructure and residential projects across Brisbane and South East Queensland, depends on aggregates supply chains that are both reliable and well-documented. Project managers and developers working with firms like MNL Projects, which operates across QLD, ACT, and NSW under Director Mitchell Smith, increasingly expect their supply chain partners to provide live inventory data and chain-of-custody documentation as a standard part of procurement. The technology to deliver that is now available. The question for Queensland quarry operators is how quickly they adopt it.

This article was compiled by AI from the sources linked above and screened before publishing. See our editorial standards.