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Multi-Category
ABF Transforms Freight & Logistics Procurement with Keelvar
Automotive
Keelvar for automotive sourcing
Join leading companies like Volvo and Honda who are driving better automotive sourcing outcomes with Keelvar.
Trusted by industry leading procurement teams globally
What other automotive companies get from Keelvar
$180M
spend optimized in 1 year
$40M
savings in 1 year
80%
average bidder participation
200x
ROI in 1 year
Better sourcing outcomes for automotive
Tier-2 risks surface late. Production schedules have no slack. A single component delay stops the line. Keelvar gives your team the tools to make better sourcing decisions, faster — before disruption reaches the plant.
Make award decisions based on total value, not just price
Model scenarios across cost, quality, lead time, supplier financial health, and capacity — so every award reflects what production actually needs, not just what came in lowest.
Component availability changes without warning. Trigger new sourcing events automatically when it does — without waiting for a shortage to surface on the shop floor.
Build best practices once, apply them everywhere
Create workflows for your key categories — castings, stampings, electronics, raw materials — and reuse them across plants, platforms, and every sourcing cycle.
Run more events without adding headcount
Automate bid invites, reminders, validation, and conditional awarding. Your team focuses on decisions — not administration.
Suppliers see where they stand in real time — driving better bids and stronger competition across every event you run.
Do you need a product that can help you with sourcing?
Keelvar is built for the sourcing events most tools can't handle — and the high-volume events most teams don't have time for.
Where automotive companies are using Keelvar
See how other companies in your industry are using Keelvar across multiple spend categories.
Read moreWhat they say about us
“You don't even have to train the teams to use it. You now have [an agent] do all the work of building and creating the events for you.“
$64M
savings in 1 year
“Anybody can create a software tool to house data. It’s the analytics that tipped the scale back in 2019, and it’s the reason we’re still using Keelvar 6 years later. Anything we can do to help stabilise or drive down costs during tariff changes or shipping disruptions has been very valuable to us.”
$440M
savings in 2 years from $7.5bn spend
“Keelvar's scenario analysis and automation has allowed us to unlock savings we wouldn't have otherwise identified.“
$3.5M
savings in 2024 in ocean freight alone
“Keelvar is an incredibly easy to use tool both from a bidder and a purchaser perspective. It’s a huge win for us to not have to go through training, and debugging, and support issues with our vendors. In the past 4 years that we’ve used the tool, I’ve never had to do it.”
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FAQs
Straight answers to common questions about Keelvar.
Automotive procurement teams face some of the most structurally complex sourcing challenges in any industry — multi-tier supply chains, direct materials with tight specifications, and constant pressure on cost and supply continuity. Keelvar is used by automotive procurement teams to run complex multi-round direct materials tenders with scenario modelling, automate high-volume indirect and MRO sourcing, and manage transport rates across global logistics networks.
Direct materials in automotive involves highly engineered components with constrained supplier bases and interdependencies between lots. Keelvar lets teams model award scenarios that account for supplier capacity, geographic risk, and multi-item dependencies — not just unit price. This means automotive teams can make defensible award decisions that balance cost with supply resilience in a single analytical workflow.
Yes. Keelvar supports multi-stage event structures with configurable round rules, traffic light feedback, and dynamic target rates. For automotive categories where multiple negotiation rounds are standard — especially in direct materials and tooling — this means each round is structured to maximise competitive tension and drive suppliers toward their best possible pricing, without revealing confidential bid data.
MRO and indirect spend in automotive is typically high-volume and time-critical — unplanned downtime is expensive, and reactive purchasing is common. Keelvar's autonomous sourcing agents can be configured to handle routine MRO spot buys automatically: receiving the request, identifying the supplier shortlist, running a fast RfQ, and returning a recommendation within minutes. This frees category managers to focus on strategic direct materials work.
When tariffs change or supply chain disruptions force rapid resourcing, automotive teams need to run sourcing events quickly and evaluate new supplier options against existing contracts. Keelvar's platform supports rapid event launch, real-time benchmark rate integration, and multi-scenario analysis — so teams can assess the commercial impact of a supply switch before committing to it.