For parts traders and MROs, aviation purchase order management avoids delays by integrating procurement and receiving into a single platform. Although aviation organizations often treat “Procurement” and “Receiving” as separate departments, they operate as a single control chain. The result is a deeper understanding of how procurement establishes vendor delivery-related expectations, certifications, timelines, and internal readiness.
As a result, any deficiencies in the procurement stage produce deficiencies in subsequent processes, eventually prolonging order completion. Therefore, to eliminate purchase order delays in aviation, it is necessary to understand how procurement impacts the execution of receiving.
Why Does the Purchase Order Structure Determine Procurement Delays?
The supply chain in the aviation industry treats a purchase order as the first contractual commitment. It’s a kind of agreement. Once issued, it establishes the following contractual information:
- What parts are to be received and delivered?
- When are they expected to be received?
- Under what conditions may be accepted by the supplier/recipient?
Delays happen when MRO procurement management lacks structure or relies on missing information.
Examples of problems that result in delays are:
- Records of individual parts created without having validated conditions or traceability requirements.
- Approval workflows for purchases are based on emails instead of a purchase order approval system.
- No visibility into the vendor’s acknowledgement or acceptance of the order.
- Procurement activity not connected to inventory planning.
In simple terms, purchase order data needs to be accurate and complete. If it’s not, then it deviates from the standard workflow.
How Purchase Order Data Affects Your Workflow
Speed results from the availability of the correct data at the point of order creation. When part numbers, certification requirements, and delivery expectations are not clear, order approvals are delayed, and vendors will respond with requests for clarification instead of confirmations.
To successfully issue purchase orders, there are three things you must have:
- Verified part numbers and condition codes for aircraft parts procurement.
- Explicit certification and traceability expectations.
- The ability to align vendors with your capability requirements prior to issuing the purchase order.
When those three things are properly defined prior to issuing a purchase order, delays associated with the procurement process will be significantly reduced.
The Importance of Vendor Acknowledgment
What we observe at the ground level is that many aviation organizations, even to this day, issue purchase orders without tracking or follow-up. They don’t know whether a vendor has formally accepted the order. This creates a false sense of progress. A purchase order that has not been acknowledged by the vendor does not represent a commitment by the vendor.
Without tracking vendor acknowledgments:
- Vendors may deprioritize the order.
- Delivery dates are based on assumptions.
- Late shipping or non-delivery will only be identified after the expected receipt date has passed.
A structured confirmation is a vital control and should not be treated as an administrative step or action.
What Exactly Causes Receiving Problems
Receiving teams are not at fault for procurement problems but rather suffer the repercussions of procurement problems. Missing certifications and inaccuracies in shipments regarding numbers or conditions create interruptions in the aviation receiving process that noticeably impact receiving timeframes.
Delays associated with receiving problems often include:
- Delays of quarantined parts because there is not enough documentation.
- Time necessary to reconcile shipment details manually.
- Time necessary to inspect due to unanticipated arrivals.
Each of these delays stems from poor ways of structuring and maintaining purchase orders.
How Using an Aviation ERP System Helps
An aviation ERP system connects procurement with receiving by creating consistent ways to enforce interdependencies rather than relying on informal methods of coordination. Automatic purchase orders can be created when certain levels of inventory/repair demands are met.
Using an ERP system to implement these practices allows for:
- One central source of truth for part/vendor information.
- Workflows based on status taken from the purchase order approval software.
- Automated validation against expected conditions at the time of receiving items.
Therefore, delays can be discovered early enough to mitigate the impact on operations.
Power Aero Suites in the Procurement to Receiving Flow
Power Aero Suites is an aviation-specific ERP solution that was built with MROs (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) and aircraft parts trading in mind. It creates a seamless connection between procurement, sales orders, repairs/exchanges, inventory, compliance documentation, and accounting.
The software is built to follow the actual workflows of aviation (traceability, certification, timing) rather than trying to adjust aviation activities into generic ERP solutions, which do not reflect how aviation operations happen on the ground.
Power Aero Suites builds structured workflows, including the creation of an automated purchase order, to integrate procurement, vendor confirmation, and receiving validation into a seamless workflow.
Conclusion
For aviation parts brokers and MROs, the delays related to purchase orders are symptoms of poor structure and poor integration of the workflows. It can be fixed easily by utilizing an intelligent ERP system explicitly designed for your workflow, rather than trying to adjust with offline spreadsheets. Purchase order automation and treating procurement & receiving as a single controlled process improve timing, increase predictability of downstream operations.
Book a demo with Power Aero Suites to see how procurement, receiving, and compliance workflows are managed in one system.
