How the KOEPFER Group captures additional savings in tail spend with AI agents

About the company

Headquartered in Furtwangen in the Black Forest, the KOEPFER Group is a leading manufacturer of high-precision gear and transmission components for automotive and non-automotive applications. The company operates a production site of roughly 13,000 m² in Furtwangen with around 368 employees. Group-wide it has between 500 and 1,000 staff across several sites, including international units in China and Serbia. In a market shaped by efficiency and margin pressure, procurement faced the challenge of capturing additional savings with existing resources – without adding headcount.

The challenge

Procurement at the KOEPFER Group faced a classic dilemma:

• No additional resources despite growing savings targets

• Quotes below a certain value threshold (confidential) went unnegotiated for lack of capacity

• Departments and requisition creators often attached only a single quote to a requisition, which made comparison difficult

• No time to identify the relevant negotiation levers per category

Head of Procurement Marcel Schweizer recognized early on that tail spend holds savings potential. But without extra capacity it stayed untapped – until a dedicated AI agent came in.

The solution

An AI agent was deployed and integrated specifically for the tail spend negotiation process across various areas (above all non-production material (NPM) such as MRO, services and other indirect categories) – with three clear functions:

1. Quote analysis – The agent reads incoming quotes in the requisition approval process and automatically assesses them for attractiveness, price level and negotiation potential. Where several quotes exist, they are compared automatically, including a recommendation – with no manual entry into a comparison sheet.

2. Automated email drafts – Based on the negotiation levers it identifies, the agent independently writes best-practice emails within seconds – well-founded, precise, persuasive. Buyers can confirm, edit or reweight them at the push of a button. The data sources behind the levers, such as comparable quotes or supplier history, are transparently visible and verifiable.

3. Automatic savings tracking – When an updated quote comes in, the agent automatically detects whether a price reduction was achieved against the original quote or historical prices – whether or not a comparable quote exists and whether the negotiation was a direct follow-up. This makes savings measurable per team, category or supplier, documented traceably and reported automatically.

4. (Coming) Direct sending & quote comparison – A future stage will have the agent also collect comparable quotes to increase competitive pressure further – all without extra effort for the team. In the KOEPFER Group's assessment, this can raise savings significantly once again.