Speaking at MRO Management's PAM Europe Conference in Dublin this week, Fer drew parallels between the traditional taxi industry and today's used serviceable material (USM) market, arguing that limited supply chain visibility continues to undermine the benefits of predictive maintenance.
“The supply chain disturbance is real, and the industry is asking for visibility,” he told delegates.
Fer recalled how, before Uber, passengers would stand on street corners hoping to flag down a taxi, with little certainty over when one might arrive, who was driving or how much the journey would cost. Drivers faced equally inefficient conditions, spending hours waiting for fares without knowing where demand might emerge.
Uber transformed that relationship by making prices, availability and driver information visible before passengers committed to a journey, while helping drivers reduce unproductive time.
Fer believes the same principles could revolutionise aircraft parts procurement, where buyers still rely heavily on emails, requests for quotation and fragmented inventory listings.
“Listings tell you where to start a conversation, not where and how to source a part,” he explained.
Even when a component appears available, buyers often have no certainty over whether it is physically in stock, its actual price or the availability of certification and traceability documentation.
“How much stock is out there, nobody can see, and that uncertainty has a price. The entire industry pays it,” Fer said.
It is this lack of transparency that STRADE aims to address through its digital marketplace, which Fer described as the 'USM Uber'.
Built around the proposition of 'real parts, real prices, real time', STRADE Marketplace displays verified component availability, stock locations, outright and exchange prices, lead times and supporting documentation before a buyer commits to a transaction.
According to Fer, the platform currently features more than $190 million in inventory, covering 78% of rotable components across the Boeing 787, Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 fleets, and receives more than 150,000 searches per month.
The implications for predictive maintenance are significant. While increasingly sophisticated analytics can identify component degradation weeks before a planned removal, that valuable lead time can quickly disappear through lengthy sourcing processes.
Fer warned that limited supply visibility can also amplify the industry's "bullwhip effect", where a single component requirement generates multiple enquiries through brokers and intermediaries, artificially inflating perceived demand.
Connecting predictive maintenance systems directly with verified parts availability could instead enable airlines to move seamlessly from identifying an emerging fault to securing a replacement component through a planned purchase.
“STRADE commits to sharing verified availability as the default. Open and neutral by design. Transparent to overcome the root of the supply chain challenges,” Fer concluded.
For STRADE, the ambition is to bring the same certainty to aircraft parts procurement that Uber introduced to the taxi industry, ensuring that predicting a component failure is matched by the ability to source its replacement quickly, transparently and with confidence.
