With a go-live timeframe of just 4 months, including the holidays in December, Alcoa was able to deploy Fairmarkit’s autonomous sourcing solution in multiple locations, including Brazil, United States, and Canada with rapid expansion plans for other territories like Australia and Europe.
Alcoa is a global industry leader in the production of bauxite, alumina and aluminum. Since developing the aluminum industry more than 135 years ago, Alcoa has built a legacy of breakthrough innovations and best practices that have led to efficiency, safety, sustainability, and stronger communities wherever they operate. Through direct and indirect ownership, Alcoa has 27 operating locations in nine countries, situated primarily in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Spain, and the United States.
Across the company, Alcoa is focused on three strategic priorities: Reduce complexity, Drive returns, and Advance sustainably. Recognizing the significant impact that procurement can drive for strategic initiatives, the leadership at Alcoa Procurement sought to digitize their purchasing processes in order to drive better & faster decision-making.
Our decision to invest in an autonomous sourcing solution was driven by a dual purpose: cost savings and efficiency gains. We envisioned a streamlined requisition cycle, where complexity would yield to simplicity. By embracing a standardized approach globally, we aimed to transform the very fabric of our buyers’ operations. And woven into this transformation was a commitment to ensuring compliance to specs, reducing delivery lead times, and increasing and meticulously tracking our spend with qualified I&D/ESG (Inclusion & Diversity / Environmental, Social, and Governance) suppliers.
Jay Holton, from the Procurement Center of Excellence at Alcoa, recognized cost-savings and supply resilience as the key goals for digitization, especially considering the volatile nature of the aluminum market. With that goal, the team set out to evaluate best-in-class solutions to automate their procurement processes and leverage emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence.
Alcoa approached Fairmarkit with the intention of:
Fairmarkit revolutionized our tail spend management. Before its implementation, our processes were fragmented, manual, and lacked standardization.
With Fairmarkit, we streamlined the source-to-PO process, ensured compliance to specs, compared delivery lead times, and achieved transparency across countries and operating locations. The impact was profound. Beyond our initial goals, Fairmarkit surprised us. It became a catalyst for collaboration. Buyers engaged more effectively, and data-driven insights empowered decision-making. Supplier interactions became transparent, fostering trust.
Fairmarkit’s real-time analytics and AI-driven recommendations stood out. They guided our sourcing decisions, optimized supplier selection, and accelerated cycle times. The platform’s user-friendly interface fostered adoption and even skeptics embraced the solution.
