All,
A quick note: several readers reported a formatting issue in the original email that made portions of the article difficult to read. I've corrected the issue and am resending the article below so everyone receives the intended version.
​https://erpaero.kit.com/posts/the-aviation-aftermarket-doesn-t-need-better-rfqs-it-needs-better-answers​
PS. Thank you to the few that squinted or clicked select all to read it yesterday. As much as I was embarrassed, I appreciated it.
Ralph
TL:DR
Speed and classification are not enough.
Part 1.
The Industry Has Spent Years Optimizing Preparation
The aviation software industry is entering a new phase. For years, the conversation centered around visibility, workflow management, and system adoption. Then the discussion shifted toward automation. Today it is increasingly focused on AI agents, procurement intelligence, sourcing automation, and autonomous workflows. Each step has represented real progress, and much of the current direction is correct.
Systems should be able to understand incoming demand. They should be able to identify inventory shortages automatically. They should be able to trigger sourcing events, rank suppliers, and reduce the number of manual handoffs required to move work through the organization. Compared to the email inboxes, spreadsheets, disconnected tools, and tribal knowledge that have historically dominated aviation operations, this is unquestionably an improvement.
Yet beneath all of the excitement surrounding procurement automation lies a more important question that the industry is only beginning to confront. What happens after the system realizes the answer doesn't already exist?
The Market Response Problem Was Always Real
That question matters because aviation has never really suffered from an RFQ generation problem. Companies know how to ask questions. Buyers know how to create demand. Procurement teams know how to contact suppliers. Marketplaces like PartsBase Inc., Locatory.com, Inventory Locator Service,® LLC, AVSpares.com, Aeroxchange and others have spent decades making it easier to distribute requests into the market. The bottleneck has always existed further downstream.
The challenge isn't creating another RFQ. The challenge is creating a qualified answer. Every operator who has spent time inside the aviation aftermarket understands this intuitively. A customer sends a request. Inventory is unavailable. Purchasing begins sourcing. Vendors are contacted. Responses arrive inconsistently. Documentation must be reviewed. Certifications must be verified. Lead times must be compared. Conditions must be validated. Pricing must be evaluated. Historical supplier performance must be considered. Eventually someone assembles enough information to make a decision and build a quote.
The reality is that most organizations still spend far more time resolving demand than they do generating it.
This distinction is important because many of the industry's newest automation initiatives focus primarily on procurement preparation. They improve what happens before sourcing begins. An incoming RFQ can be parsed automatically. Inventory can be checked automatically. Vendor recommendations can be generated automatically. Workflows can be triggered automatically.
These capabilities remove friction and increase efficiency, but they don't necessarily remove the underlying bottleneck. In many cases they simply accelerate the moment at which a company discovers it still needs an answer from somewhere else. Faster preparation is valuable, but preparation and resolution are not the same thing. One improves the speed at which work begins. The other improves the speed at which work finishes.
For a long time this limitation was unavoidable because the technology required to solve it simply didn't exist. The market was in pieces. Data was inconsistent. Supplier information was distributed across too many systems (still is), marketplaces, emails, and personal relationships. Even when companies tried to automate sourcing, they quickly encountered the realities of the aviation aftermarket. Suppliers respond differently. Inventory quality varies. Documentation standards vary. Some vendors quote quickly while others quote days later. Some provide complete traceability while others require follow-up. Some consistently perform while others only appear competitive on paper.
The challenge was never merely obtaining responses. The challenge was determining which responses could actually be trusted.
Why the Response Layer Is Still Not Enough
This is where the conversation begins to change. The industry increasingly talks about the need for a response layer, a framework in which buyer-side automation is met by seller-side automation. The theory is straightforward.
If a sourcing system can automatically generate requests, suppliers should be able to automatically generate responses. That concept is directionally correct, but even that framing understates the opportunity. A response isn't the destination. It's simply another piece of information. Receiving ten quotes does not solve demand. Receiving fifty quotes does not solve demand. At some point the organization still needs to determine which supplier should win, which documentation satisfies requirements, which lead time is realistic, which condition is acceptable, and which option provides the highest probability of conversion. The market doesn't need a response layer nearly as much as it needs an execution layer.
The Rise of the Execution Layer
The difference between those two concepts is significant. A response layer helps answer questions. An execution layer helps create outcomes. Imagine a workflow where a customer RFQ enters the system and inventory is unavailable. Rather than stopping at a no-stock notification, the system identifies approved sourcing vendors, distributes requests automatically, ingests responses automatically, extracts pricing, lead times, certifications, and supporting documentation automatically, evaluates supplier performance against historical data, determines which sourcing option best aligns with business objectives, and then constructs a decision-ready quote for the customer.
The workflow will no longer end when inventory is unavailable. It continues until a viable answer has been assembled. That isn't procurement automation. It's execution automation.
From Procurement Automation to Execution Automation
The implications become even more significant when intelligence is introduced into the decision itself. Most technology vendors remain focused on helping customers collect information. The next stage of innovation will focus on helping all of us act on information. That distinction is subtle, but it's enormously important. Data alone rarely creates value. Decisions create value.
If ten suppliers answer an RFQ, the challenge is no longer sourcing. The challenge is understanding which answer represents the best commercial outcome. Price matters, but so does lead time. Certification matters. Historical performance matters. Customer-specific preferences matter. Documentation quality matters. Risk matters. The systems that create the greatest operational leverage will not simply display these variables. They will evaluate them. They will rank them. They will learn from outcomes. Increasingly, they will guide users toward the decision most likely to succeed.
Why Decision Intelligence Matters More Than AI Agents
The market's current fascination with AI agents risks creating the same mistake that dashboards created a decade ago. I've noticed companies begin focusing on the mechanism instead of the outcome. The number of agents deployed matters far less than the number of decisions that no longer require manual intervention.
The real opportunity isn't to automate individual tasks. It is to automate judgment where judgment can be supported by historical performance, operational data, supplier behavior, business rules, and organizational objectives. The systems that create the most value won't be those with the most impressive demonstrations. They'll be the systems that consistently help organizations arrive at better decisions faster and with greater confidence.-
The Rise of the Execution Layer in Practice
This is where platforms such as ERP.Aero, combined with capabilities like #iRFQ and #ELIA, and initiatives like ERP.Aero /build, begin to represent something larger than traditional ERP functionality. The goal is no longer limited to parsing incoming RFQs or automating outbound sourcing requests. The objective is to participate in the creation of the answer itself. If inventory is unavailable, sourcing can be initiated automatically.
Approved suppliers can be identified automatically. Responses can be collected and normalized automatically. Vendor performance, pricing, certifications, lead times, and historical behavior can be evaluated automatically. The resulting intelligence can then be used to construct a customer-facing quote rather than simply presenting a list of disconnected supplier responses. More importantly, because the architecture is not confined to a fixed workflow, organizations can extend and adapt these capabilities to support their own operating models, approval structures, sourcing strategies, and commercial objectives.
The Most Important Capability Is Adaptability
That last point may ultimately prove more important than any individual AI capability.
Aviation companies don't all operate the same way. They don't buy the same products, serve the same customers, maintain the same compliance standards, or compete in the same markets. The future is unlikely to belong to rigid software platforms that prescribe a single way of working. It is more likely to belong to configurable execution frameworks capable of adapting to the realities of each business.
Some organizations may require sophisticated sourcing automation. Others may require repair-driven workflows. Others may prioritize inventory alternatives, exchange opportunities, consignment sourcing, or marketplace aggregation. The winning platforms will not simply provide software. They will provide the foundation upon which organizations can build the execution architecture they actually need.
What the Future Actually Looks Like
For decades the aviation aftermarket has focused on making RFQs easier to send. That was a necessary step in the industry's evolution. The next decade will be defined by something different. The companies that create the most value aren't the ones that automate procurement preparation alone. They'll be the companies that connect demand, sourcing, supplier intelligence, documentation, decision-making, and quote generation into a single operational flow capable of producing outcomes rather than activities.
The Practical Takeaway
Procurement is not solved when the request leaves the building. Procurement is solved when a qualified answer comes back. Increasingly, the most valuable systems in the market will be the ones capable of helping generate that answer themselves.
The aviation industry has spent years automating how RFQs are created. The next generation of innovation will focus on how RFQs are answered. The generation after that will focus on how demand is resolved. The companies that lead that transition will not simply automate procurement. They will automate execution.
About the Author
Ralph Merhi is the CEO of ERP.Aero and host of the Skybound Ops podcast. Having spent years working alongside aviation distributors, brokers, OEMs, manufacturers, and MRO organizations, he focuses on helping aviation companies modernize operations, reduce manual effort, and create scalable processes that support long-term growth. His work centers on the intersection of aviation operations, automation, artificial intelligence, and practical business execution.
About ERP.Aero​
​ERP.Aero is an aviation-specific ERP platform built to help suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, brokers, and repair organizations manage their operations from a single source of truth. Combining inventory management, procurement, quality, compliance, eCommerce, workflow automation, AI-driven capabilities, and marketplace connectivity, ERP.Aero is designed to help organizations move beyond disconnected systems and manual processes. Through solutions such as iRFQ and ELIA, and /build, , the platform continues to expand its focus from operational management toward intelligent execution, helping aviation companies turn demand into outcomes faster and more efficiently.
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