"The customer only sees the outcome."
It was a simple observation from BAE Systems' presentation at Syncron's recent Aftermarket Executive Exchange, and one that resonated with many of the challenges explored throughout the day.
Behind every promise of equipment availability lies a complicated operation. Fleets span multiple generations of technology, customer requirements vary, demand can be difficult to predict, and responsibility for keeping assets running stretches across internal teams, suppliers, dealers, and service partners.
Customers, meanwhile, simply need their equipment to work.
That tension between the complexity of delivering aftermarket performance and the simplicity of what customers expect was a recurring theme when senior industry leaders gathered at the Porsche HQ in Stuttgart on October 1. The event brought together senior leaders from across the manufacturing and aftermarket sectors to explore how organizations can overcome operational fragmentation and turn the aftermarket's considerable commercial potential into stronger business performance.
BAE Systems brought that challenge into sharp focus.
In a presentation on supporting some of the world's most complex combat aircraft fleets, BAE Systems' Support and Services Functional Director, Mark Turner explored what it takes to maintain aircraft with different configurations, technologies, and operational requirements. With fleets spanning multiple generations and operating in an unpredictable environment, ensuring availability depends on how effectively people, processes, technology, and data work together.
Few aftermarket organizations face quite the same stakes as those supporting combat aircraft. But the underlying pressures will be familiar to manufacturers across industries: diverse installed bases, changing customer requirements, supply chain constraints, and the need to keep everything moving across multiple teams and organizations.
That theme carried into a panel featuring leaders from BAE Systems, MEKO, AWS, and Syncron, which explored where fragmentation creates friction in aftermarket operations. Supplier collaboration, the role of data and AI, and the organizational barriers to improvement were among the issues examined.
One area where those challenges are particularly apparent is inventory planning. In a roundtable on Visibility, Data & Decision Making, moderated by Syncron CPO Daniel Shearly, participants discussed the need to get ahead of demand rather than constantly respond to shortages and changing requirements. AI and machine learning offer opportunities to improve forecasting and planning, but the discussion revealed considerable differences in how far organizations have progressed. A small number are already applying advanced analytics and AI at scale, while many are still at an early stage and have yet to realize the full potential of their data.
Data quality, fragmented systems, and confidence in the information available were recurring concerns, alongside organizational barriers to change. Despite the growing sophistication of analytical technology, these everyday challenges continue to make it difficult to turn better information into better operational decisions.
AWS also offered a glimpse of what may lie ahead, exploring applications for generative and agentic AI across parts identification, technical knowledge, ordering, and warranty management.
While data and technology featured prominently throughout the event, another important dimension emerged from a roundtable on Building the Right Aftermarket Ecosystem, moderated by Syncron's Luke Huckerby.
No manufacturer delivers aftermarket performance entirely on its own. The wider network includes organizations with different capabilities, resources, and commercial priorities, and the discussion explored what it takes to make those moving parts work effectively together.
Participants emphasized the importance of aligning resources around common business goals and creating value for everyone involved. For manufacturers relying on dealers, distributors, suppliers, and service partners, that means understanding what motivates those businesses and how their individual priorities influence the way they work together.
The discussion also raised the issue of organizational knowledge. Experienced employees often carry a wealth of expertise about equipment, customers, and operational processes that can be difficult to replace when they leave. Capturing and making that knowledge more widely accessible can help manufacturers preserve capability and avoid losing valuable experience as their organizations evolve.
Running through the discussion was a recognition that the performance of an aftermarket network depends as much on how its participants interact as on the capabilities each brings to the table.
The conversations in Stuttgart painted a picture of an aftermarket industry with considerable opportunity ahead, alongside some stubborn challenges that even the latest technology won't solve overnight.
Manufacturers have more information, more sophisticated tools, and more ways to understand and anticipate customer needs than ever before. Making the most of those capabilities means getting to grips with the practical realities of aftermarket operations, from the quality of the data underpinning decisions to the relationships that make execution possible.
And while the formal sessions provided plenty of food for thought, the day also offered opportunities to continue conversations in a less formal setting, with a tour of the Porsche factory offering a glimpse behind the scenes of one of the world’s most iconic automakers, before an evening of Bavarian-style festivities at Cannstatter Wasen, Stuttgart’s answer to the renowned Oktoberfest beer festival.
For all the complexity involved in improving aftermarket performance, there is enormous value in bringing experienced people together to compare notes, challenge assumptions, and learn from one another. That, ultimately, is what the Aftermarket Executive Exchange is about.