Customer Case · Mining & Corporate Asset Management

How Rio Tinto Achieved 90% Faster Asset Audits with QR-Based Smart Tracking

The world's second-largest mining corporation brought smart visibility to 5,000+ corporate assets — replacing manual checks with QR-based tracking and cutting audit time by 90%.

India Metals & Mining 90% faster audits
Introduction

The customer: Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto, the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation, founded in 1873, relies on technology — including automation and AI — to run safer, more efficient operations. Managing 5,000+ assets across multiple corporate locations in India required a modern, scalable tracking solution.

Smart Asset Visibility, delivered with our partner tag8, provided exactly that — built on asset register and lifecycle management for the mining sector.

The Challenge

No system, no visibility

Without a system to track and monitor assets, knowing their location, condition, usage and ownership was difficult — leading to risks of loss, theft, misplacement and duplication. And without automation, asset-management tasks were time-consuming and labor-intensive, creating bottlenecks in operations and compliance processes.

No visibility

Location, condition, usage and ownership were hard to know.

Loss & theft

Weak tracking led to loss, theft, misplacement and duplication.

Labor-intensive

Manual asset tasks were time-consuming and labor-heavy.

Compliance bottlenecks

Slow processes created bottlenecks in operations and compliance.

The Solution

QR-based Smart Asset Visibility

SmartX HUB deployed a QR-based Smart Asset Visibility Solution for continuous monitoring and lifecycle management — simple to scan, powerful to audit.

5,000 QR-Tagged Assets

5,000 assets tagged with QR codes across 2 corporate locations.

Smart Asset Visibility

Continuous monitoring and full lifecycle management on one platform.

Real-Time Location

Live location tracking of admin and IT assets.

QR Check-in / Check-out

Scanner-based check-in/out with status by location and employee assignment.

Digital Audit Trail

A complete digital audit trail for compliance and reporting.

The right technology for the job

Not every asset needs RFID or a live radio. For distributed corporate and IT assets, QR tagging with scanner-based check-in/out is fast, low-cost and audit-ready — which is exactly how Rio Tinto turned days-long audits into a task 90% faster, with a clean digital trail behind every scan.

Implementation & Results

Measurable, transformative results

90%
faster asset audits
5,000
assets QR-tagged
100%
digital audit trail
  • 90% faster asset monitoring, assessment and tracking.
  • Elimination of manual asset checks and the errors that came with them.
  • Easy reconciliation between audits.
  • Unlimited scalability across multiple locations.
  • Significant time and cost savings.
Conclusion

Smart tracking, at mining-industry scale

Rio Tinto's 90% improvement in audit speed demonstrates the transformative power of QR-based asset tracking at scale. For organizations managing thousands of assets across distributed locations, smart tracking delivers the accuracy, speed and compliance that manual methods simply cannot.

Explore related capabilities: Asset Inventory Management, Mining 4.0, and Loss Prevention.

Make asset audits 90% faster

See how SmartX HUB uses QR-based tracking for fast, accurate, audit-ready asset management across distributed locations.