Every year, the maritime and energy sectors gather at a handful of events large enough to take the industry's pulse. This year, two of them, ONS (centred on energy) and SMM (centred on maritime), delivered a strikingly consistent message.
Besides the panels on digitalisation, decarbonisation, energy security, and geopolitics, the conversations that kept recurring were about keeping aging equipment running when the parts to fix it are getting harder to find.
When operators, shipowners, and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) across unrelated equipment categories independently describe the same problem, parts availability starts looking like a supply chain risk embedded in how these industries source and support their assets.
Legacy parts have become a leadership-level problem
For years, the lack of spare parts for older equipment was treated as a maintenance headache, something a procurement team quietly worked around. That framing no longer holds. At both events, parts availability became a central topic, and it came up at the level of executives, not just parts managers.
Equipment that has been in service for two to four decades starts losing manufacturer support. Foundries and machine shops stop tooling up for parts that only need to be produced in small, unpredictable batches. Suppliers respond by introducing minimum order quantities that make no economic sense for a buyer who only needs one unit. The result is a widening gap between equipment that is still working hard in the field and the industrial capacity to keep it supplied.
This shows a systemic weakness in how legacy support has traditionally been organized, and it explains why long lead times on critical parts have become one of the most expensive and disruptive risks operators now manage.
When parts disappear, buyers go looking elsewhere
Long lead times do not only cause delays, but they also change buyer behaviour. When an operator cannot get a critical part through the manufacturer's authorised channel within a timeframe that keeps an asset running, the incentive to look elsewhere becomes very strong, whatever the risks involved.
That is where the conversation about unauthorised and grey market parts quietly enters the picture. Reverse-engineered components, parts sourced through informal channels, and components produced without the manufacturer's oversight all become more attractive the longer an authorised alternative takes to arrive. The uncomfortable truth raised in more than one conversation at these events is that grey market activity is not really a separate problem from long lead times, but rather a downstream consequence of them.
Intellectual property has become the real gatekeeping question
If long lead times are the visible pain point, the conversation underneath it is increasingly about intellectual property. Several OEMs described being pulled between two instincts: keep manufacturing entirely in-house to protect design data or open up to external production networks under strict conditions. What was notable was how often that second option was being taken seriously, provided the right guardrails existed.
A few years ago, the primary objection to alternative manufacturing routes for critical parts was price or unfamiliarity with the technology. Now, the central objection is trust: can an external production network be relied upon to protect proprietary designs, tolerances, and process knowledge as carefully as an in-house production would? Quality assurance and IP protection were raised more often, and more decisively, than cost in several of these conversations.
The question is whether a manufacturing partner can be trusted with the digital and physical assets involved in making a part correctly and safely while safeguarding intellectual property. Audits, supplier certification frameworks, secure handling of design data, and a track record of discretion are what matters.
Inventory strategy and geography are shifting too
Two related trends reinforce the shift in supply chain strategies. First, several organizations described moving away from large physical stockpiles of spare parts, not because stockpiling stopped working, but because it has become expensive and inefficient to predict demand for slow-moving legacy components years in advance. One organization described scrapping a quarter of a million dollars in obsolete inventory sitting unused in a regional warehouse. This is prompting a rethink of inventory as a strategic lever rather than a passive buffer.
Second, production is becoming more region focused. Several conversations pointed to a deliberate move away from centralised manufacturing in favour of localised production closer to where equipment operates, with underserved regions like Brazil coming up repeatedly as markets with real operational demand but little manufacturing footprint nearby.
The central message
Together, these threads describe an industry rethinking how it supports equipment over a multi-decade lifespan. Long lead times are pushing buyers toward risky sourcing channels. Intellectual property concerns are reshaping how manufacturers think about who they trust with their designs. Inventory strategy is shifting from stockpiling to responsiveness. And production is spreading out geographically rather than staying centralised.
The industry has largely stopped debating whether the traditional model of spare parts support is under strain. The conversation has moved on to what a trustworthy, well-governed supply chain alternative looks like, and who is prepared to build it properly.
Insights | 8 September 2026
