The aviation ecosystem depends on the smooth functioning of MRO processes to keep aircraft safely in service. However, the industry face increasing challenges in managing spare parts inventory and supply chain management as procurement technologies evolve further. Manual tracking processes and fragmented legacy systems strain to handle growing complexity across the global MRO network.

In this article, we explore 5 of the major spare parts management challenges MRO stakeholders face today. We’ll also discuss how ADO Aerospace’s purpose-built solutions can help stakeholders modernize parts management to gain control of these pain points.

Challenge 1: Lack of Visibility into Global Inventory

MROs often have little real-time insights of their spare parts inventory levels and locations across multiple global maintenance sites and projects. This makes it extremely difficult to accurately track stock counts and efficiently allocate parts where they are needed. The situation is exacerbated by shortages of spare parts for older aircraft models still in service, as demand outpaces limited global supply. Parts can go missing without notice and be extremely difficult to procure, leading to extended aircraft downtime.

ADO Solution: we provides real-time global inventory visibility through an integrated aviation-focused platform connecting MROs, OEMs, airlines and suppliers. This cloud-based approach prevents parts from going missing and enables intelligent allocation.

Challenge 2: Data Fragmentation Across Siloed Systems

Spare parts data typically resides across disconnected software systems like ERP, Engineering, procurement, warehouse management, etc. Each system contains its own partial dataset leading to fragmentation. This prevents companies from bringing together a unified view of inventory to enable integrated planning and analysis.

ADO Solution: We unify spare parts data into a decentralized network allowing collaboration between different aviation organizations, by configuring workflows and document management, we eliminate fragmentation and provides a consolidated 360 view for all stakeholders involved in a given tender.

Challenge 3: Inability to Optimize Costs

Description: The lack of centralized parts visibility and purchasing data makes it virtually impossible for MROs to implement cost optimization best practices. There is no clear picture of expenditure trends to identify areas of waste or overspending. MROs are limited in their ability to leverage aggregated demand data to improve procurement efficiency.

ADO Solution: we leverage AI and data analytics to benchmark costs across the network and offer a E2E transactions eliminating intermediaries, this would save costs, speed the process and enables data-driven procurement.

Challenge 4: Scaling Complexity with Growth

As company operations, network size, and parts volumes grow over time, continuing to rely on manual tracking and legacy systems creates massive inefficiencies. More parts, projects, and locations overwhelm spreadsheet-based approaches. This scaling complexity exacerbates existing challenges with fragmentation and lack of visibility.

Our procurement assistant is purpose-built for scalability with automated processes and cloud technology that streamline operations as complexity increases, for example, it can create AI generated quotes in seconds, this used to require extensive manual work from procurement teams. The assistant's intelligent automation capabilities enable easy scalability and growth.


Challenge 5: Regulatory Non-Compliance

Strict aviation regulatory standards like FAA compliance require detailed parts traceability and documentation. But with inventory data fragmented across systems, it becomes extremely difficult to reliably adhere to these regulations during audits. This poses major compliance risks and liabilities for MROs.

ADO makes parts traceability and documentation easy and transparent by digitizing certification records and workflows using technologies like optical character recognition (OCR). This allows full parts histories to be retrieved effortlessly for audits and reports. For MRO 145 organizations we encode regulatory logic directly into the smart contracts. This prevents compliance issues before they happen.

Conclusion

The spare parts challenges plaguing aviation stakeholders result in bloated costs, supply delays, compliance risks and reduced aircraft availability. As the industry continues to grow, these issues will only intensify. By leveraging purpose-built solutions for spare parts management, MROs can gain control of their inventory to optimize costs, ensure uptime and scale efficiently.

ADO Aerospace offers an integrated suite of spare parts management software and services tailored to the needs of Airlines ,MROs, OEMs and suppliers. By providing complete visibility, one source of truth using blockchain and enhanced UX, ADO empowers aviation procurement teams with the digital tools required for the future.