The scene repeats itself in every shop: the aircraft comes in for inspection, the crew opens the panel, and the part that should be on the shelf isn't. The part gets ordered. The hangar sits occupied waiting on freight, the customer is without an aircraft, and the shop pays twice — for the idle bay and for the supplier's rush fee.
The curious thing is that the information to avoid this already existed. It was in the work orders the shop itself closed over the past months. It just wasn't being read.
The shop's history knows what the next inspection will consume
Every closed work order (WO) records three things that, added up, become a forecast: which parts were applied, on which aircraft model and at which inspection interval. A shop that has done the 100-hour inspection on the same model ten times has, without knowing it, that inspection's kit written in its own database: the parts that always come out, the ones that come out sometimes, the typical quantities.
From this history comes the purchase list for the coming months, with three components:
1. Recurring consumption. The part the shop applies every month — filter, oil, gasket, sealant — projected over the chosen horizon. Only what actually recurs in the history enters as recurring: an item that showed up once doesn't become a monthly purchase.
2. Components coming due. What will need to be replaced on the aircraft in the portfolio, with the due point in hours converted into a date by each aircraft's flying pace — the same pace that feeds the downtime forecast, calculated from the hour-meter readings on previous WOs.
3. Inspection kit. For each forecast downtime, the parts that previous WOs for the same model, at the same interval consumed. The shop doesn't receive a generic list from the manufacturer: it receives what it itself usually applies in that inspection, on that airplane.
And all of this netted against what is already on the shelf. The forecast doesn't tell you to buy what stock has; it matches each forecast part to the balance by part number and shows only the difference.
An estimate is not an order
What makes the forecast useful is what it refuses to do.
It doesn't issue a purchase order — it suggests, month by month, with the origin of each line: whether it came from recurring consumption, from a component coming due or from the kit of a forecast inspection. It doesn't invent consumption: a part with no recurrence doesn't enter as recurring. It doesn't guess the kit: it only suggests what previous WOs really consumed — a shop that has never done the 200-hour inspection on a model doesn't get a kit for it. And when an aircraft in the portfolio doesn't have enough hour-meter readings, the dashboard says it used a conservative default, instead of pretending to be precise.
A forecast that hides its own uncertainty turns into idle stock or a bay waiting on freight. One that shows where each number came from turns into a purchase decision.
What changes in the purchasing routine
Purchasing stops being a reaction to the open WO and becomes a monthly routine: next month's list comes out before the month begins, grouped by supplier, with the inspection that justifies it. Rush freight becomes the exception. Minimum stock is calculated from real consumption, not from a hunch. And the slow-moving part — the one bought "just to be safe" that never left — shows up for what it is: capital sitting on the shelf.
For the customer, the effect is what every shop promises and few deliver: an aircraft that comes in and goes out on the agreed date, because the part was already there.
Where Alis comes in
In Alis, the purchase forecast is in Inventory, on the Intelligence tab: the "Coming months" list the month-by-month estimate — recurring consumption, components coming due and inspection kit — netted against the stock balance, with the origin of each line in plain view. It is fed by the work orders with traceability that the shop already records: the more complete the history of parts applied per WO, the more accurate the list.
And it talks to the downtime forecast: the downtime suggested in the portfolio brings the items that are coming due; the inventory intelligence brings the parts that this downtime will consume. The shop calls the customer with the window, the service and the part already sorted out.
Want to see your shop's purchase list for next month? Talk to Alis — if your work orders are already on the platform, the estimate is already calculated.
This article is informational and does not replace the approved maintenance program, the manufacturer's manuals or the technical responsibility of the maintenance organization. The consumption forecast is an aid to purchase planning — the parts, quantities and intervals that apply are those in the applicable technical documentation.