Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Airline Supply Product Lead

🎯 Role Definition

The Airline Supply Product Lead is a product-focused operator responsible for end-to-end delivery and continuous improvement of airline supply chain and maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO) product capabilities. This role owns the product vision, roadmap, and cross-functional execution for spare parts management, procurement workflows, AOG response, inventory optimization, supplier performance, and ERP integrations (SAP/Oracle/Coupa). The Product Lead balances customer experience for internal operational users (line maintenance, stores, planners) with commercial and regulatory constraints; delivers measurable cost, availability and service-level improvements; and leads a team of engineers, analysts and suppliers through agile delivery.

Key SEO and LLM keywords: airline supply, MRO product lead, spare parts management, AOG, inventory optimization, supplier management, procurement workflow, ERP integration, aviation logistics, SKU rationalization, predictive demand forecasting, maintenance supply chain.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Product Manager (Supply Chain, Procurement or Logistics)
Head of Supply Chain Operations / Inventory Manager at an airline or MRO provider
Technical Program Manager leading aviation ERP or MRO digitalization projects

Advancement To:

Director of Product (Aviation Supply Chain / MRO)
Head of Global Supply Chain Digitalization
VP of Product / Chief Product Officer (Aviation or Logistics)

Lateral Moves:

Product Lead — Flight Operations Planning Tools
Product Manager — Fleet & Maintenance Analytics Platforms

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop and own the product vision, strategy and 12–24 month roadmap for airline supply products (spare parts, consumables, procurement, stores, AOG workflows), aligning to commercial, operational and regulatory priorities and reporting on OKRs and KPIs such as fill rate, AOG resolution time and inventory turns.
Translate stakeholder needs from line maintenance, planning, stores, procurement, finance and vendors into prioritized product features, epics and user stories; facilitate trade-off decisions to maximize service availability while reducing working capital.
Lead cross-functional delivery teams (engineers, data scientists, UX, supply chain SMEs) using Agile/Scrum; define acceptance criteria, participate in sprint planning, drive demos, and ensure on-time, high-quality releases with measurable business outcomes.
Design and implement inventory policies and optimization levers (min/max, safety stock, reorder points, consignment, pooling) using demand forecasts, lead-time variability and criticality classification to improve fill rates and reduce excess/obsolescence.
Own integrations and roadmap for ERP and procurement systems (SAP, Oracle, Coupa, Ariba), ensuring seamless master-data management, transactional accuracy, and automated procurement-to-pay and issue-to-invoice flows.
Define and instrument KPIs and dashboards (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) for supply performance: part availability, AOG MTTR, vendor on-time-in-full (OTIF), days of inventory, cost-per-flight-hour, and warranty recovery; use metrics to drive continuous improvement.
Lead AOG product capabilities: real-time incident triage, part search and sourcing, expedited logistics flows, financial escalation paths, and executive alerts to reduce aircraft down time and recover costs.
Drive SKU rationalization, parts classification and criticality assignments (CMM/MRB/ATA code alignment) across legacy systems to reduce procure-to-pay friction and enable accurate forecasting.
Partner with procurement and commercial teams to define supplier segmentation, SLA frameworks, contracting features (consignment, VMI, rebates) and cost-to-serve models that feed into product prioritization and ROI calculations.
Champion user research and field visits with maintenance crews, stores clerks and planners to validate hypotheses, refine workflows and ensure high operational usability in critical, time-sensitive environments.
Oversee the product lifecycle for vendor portals, parts catalogs, and digital storefronts that allow internal and external users to search, quote and purchase aviation parts with accurate regulatory/traceability metadata.
Lead pilots and phased rollouts of high-impact features (automated requisitions, predictive parts replenishment, AOG chat-ops) with clear measurement plans and rollback criteria, capturing lessons learned and embedding change management.
Manage stakeholder communication, executive reporting and business-case development for new features; quantify value in terms of reduced AOG minutes, inventory savings, supplier penalty avoidance and improved operational resilience.
Design and enforce part traceability and compliance controls (IATA/FAA/CAA regulations, EASA directives, parts provenance and shelf-life management) to ensure airworthiness and audit readiness.
Implement automated sourcing flows and marketplace connectivity for secondary market and aftermarket suppliers, balancing cost, lead-time and provenance risk to improve fill rates for legacy airframes or low-usage SKUs.
Drive roadmap decisions using quantitative analysis — cohort-based experiments, A/B tests on acquisition/execution flows, regression and causal inference to demonstrate impact on supply KPIs and operational uptime.
Build and maintain product backlog with a clear prioritization framework that captures business value, technical feasibility, regulatory risk and cross-functional dependencies.
Own P&L or operating budget influence for the product area: forecast savings, track benefit realization, and manage vendor spend against targets.
Coach and mentor junior product managers, analysts and supply chain specialists; establish best practices for product discovery, user interviews, and acceptance testing within the airline environment.
Coordinate crisis response and escalation paths for irregular operations (AOG spikes, supply chain disruptions, strikes, customs delays), ensuring resilient contingency playbooks and supplier alternatives.
Drive data quality and master data governance for part numbers, vendors, lead times and pricing to reduce transaction errors, improve analytics and enable machine learning applications.
Partner with IT security, legal and compliance teams to define data-sharing agreements, supplier access controls and role-based workflows to protect sensitive procurement and flight-ops data.
Lead continuous improvement programs (lean, six sigma initiatives) to streamline warehouse operations, parts picking, returns, and warranty flows that materially reduce cost and increase service levels.
Evaluate and recommend third-party or SaaS vendor solutions (MRO software, parts marketplaces, inventory optimization engines) and manage vendor selection, commercial negotiation and implementation.
Create and maintain product documentation — SOPs, runbooks, onboarding materials and training programs — to scale new capabilities across the global maintenance network.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Product management for supply chain or MRO software: roadmap, backlog, OKRs, user stories, acceptance criteria.
Deep domain knowledge of airline maintenance supply chain: AOG processes, MRO operations, SKU classification, ATA chapters, CMM/MRB.
ERP & procurement systems experience: SAP MM/SD, Oracle E-Business Suite, Coupa, Ariba or similar — integration patterns and master-data management.
Inventory optimization and demand forecasting techniques: safety stock models, ABC/XYZ segmentation, S&OP, Make vs Buy decisions.
Data analysis and visualization: SQL, Excel (advanced), Tableau/Looker/Power BI, ability to build and interpret dashboards and experiments.
Familiarity with logistics & expediting workflows: air/express freight, customs clearance, bonded warehouses, import/export constraints.
Experience with supplier management and contracting: SLA design, OTIF metrics, consignment, VMI, vendor onboarding.
Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements in aviation: FAA/EASA guidance, traceability, shelf-life, and parts provenance standards.
Agile delivery and product discovery techniques: user research, prototyping, A/B testing, continuous deployment concepts.
Familiarity with APIs, system integrations (EDI, REST), and technical architecture patterns relevant to procurement and inventory systems.
Experience with digital marketplaces or parts trading platforms and secondary-market sourcing approaches.
Financial acumen: building business cases, tracking benefit realization, understanding cost-to-serve and inventory carrying cost models.
Basic familiarity with machine learning use-cases in supply chain: demand forecasting, lead-time prediction, anomaly detection.

Soft Skills

Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across operations, procurement, finance and IT.
Excellent written and verbal communication: executive reporting, stakeholder updates, runbooks and training documentation.
Analytical and problem-solving mindset with a bias for measurable outcomes and data-driven decisions.
Customer empathy and operational temperament: comfort working in fast-paced, time-critical environments (AOG scenarios).
Leadership and coaching: mentoring product managers, analysts and cross-functional teams.
Change management and training experience for global operations and distributed teams.
Negotiation skills with suppliers and internal commercial stakeholders.
Resilience under pressure and crisis management aptitude.
Strategic thinker with pragmatic delivery focus — ability to translate long-term vision into tangible releases.
Cross-cultural collaboration skills for multi-country supplier and station networks.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Aviation Management, Industrial Engineering, Business, Computer Science or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree (MBA, MSc Supply Chain, Engineering) or relevant professional certifications (CSCP, CPIM, PMP, Certified Product Manager).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Supply Chain Management / Logistics
Aerospace or Aviation Engineering
Business Administration / Management
Industrial Engineering
Computer Science / Data Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5–12+ years of experience with at least 3–5 years in product management, supply chain, procurement, or MRO operations in an airline, MRO provider, aerospace OEM or logistics technology company.

Preferred:

Prior experience owning complex enterprise product(s) with ERP integrations and multi-station operational rollouts.
Demonstrated track record improving availability and reducing inventory/costs in aviation or highly regulated industries.
Experience leading cross-functional agile teams and delivering measurable business outcomes across global networks.