Dover Chemical Corporation Uses Arkestro to Consume Internal Data to Drive Procurement Savings and Improve Processes
Dover Chemical Corporation provides chemical specialty products to customers around the world. They needed to focus on getting the best prices possible – quickly — and didn’t have time for manual tasks like data entry. So they turned to Arkestro for help.
%
year over year savings
%
of all spend goes through Arkestro
“We’ve seen 10% savings year over year and it continues to grow. Arkestro is not a stagnant platform where you see no growth. We’ve continued to grow and make the platform work for us and we gain more savings by using it.”
Patti DeVault, Buyer at Dover Chemical Corporation
The Challenge
Sitting on a mound of data
Dover Chemicals had recently implemented a maintenance system and initialized a process of using part numbers for their MRO items. They had 1-2 years of data that needed to be analyzed and scrubbed and manual data entry tasks that needed to be eliminated.
Clear insights and process improvements
Arkestro was able to quickly consume all relevant data to create clear insights on savings & process improvement opportunities.
Overview
Dover Chemical Corporation provides chemical specialty products, specifically chemical additives, to customers around the world. Their products help to improve a wide variety of materials, including fuels, metal-working materials, and polymers for use in industrial and household applications.
Many procurement teams are over encumbered with manual tasks such as data entry, and Dover Chemical was no exception. They turned to Arkestro’s Predictive Procurement Orchestration (PPO) software to help them sort through their internal data and so they could focus their time on negotiating pricing and improving supplier relationships.
Approach
Dover Chemical implemented the platform during COVID, while DeVault was working from home, “that’s how simplistic it is.” They had weekly meetings with their Arkestro representative who was always available for questions.
In 2021, Dover Chemical made the decision to integrate Arkestro with their Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP. The process was as simple as a few clicks and DeVault attributes the seamless integration with their ability to do more.
Result
Dover Chemical’s first bid using Arkestro was an annual bid on some valves the company uses. After multiple rounds of bids suggested from the insights Arkestro was able to pull, DeVault was able to save $10,000. “I was instantly sold, and was like – okay, what else can I find?”
“Because Arkestro does its thing in the background and suggests the pricing, oftentimes companies will accept our bidding price which was lower than what it had been previously!”
Today, Dover Chemical has completed over 1,000 projects within the Arkestro platform with an average of 2 bids per day and has 95% of its spend flowing through the system. DeVault credits the success of the platform due to the partnership established with Arkestro and the willingness of the product team to communicate and accept feedback to improve the product.
Conclusion
Next year, Dover Chemicals has some initiatives to get even more materials onto the Arkestro platform including capital projects, other location sites’ MRO, and even some raw materials. DeVault is anticipating a lot of changes for the procurement department at the end of 2023 into 2024 with Arkestro’s help.
“Our savings has continued to grow by 10% year after year. Arkestro is not a stagnant platform where you see no growth. We’ve continued to grow and make the platform work for us and how we can gain more savings by using it.”