Tariffs, swings in freight costs and rising raw material prices have turned sourcing decisions that used to hold for years into decisions that need to be revisited within weeks. For US manufacturers that import a large share of their components, the purchase price is only one part of the cost, and the margin depends on knowing the rest.

In this webinar hosted by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), Tom Yanowsky (Purchasing Manager at KNF Neuberger, Inc.) and Johannes Groll (Chief Product Officer at Tacto) discuss how KNF calculates total landed cost under changing tariff and transportation conditions, how AI-generated findings prepare supplier negotiations, and what Tacto Intelligence contributes to both.

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The starting point. Volatility has replaced the old sourcing playbook

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Johannes Groll opens with the forces currently reshaping manufacturing supply chains: tariffs, geopolitical conflicts, the National Defense Authorization Act, reshoring and the rapid spread of AI. Supply chains and supplier relationships were built over decades on yearly price agreements and long-term contracts. Today, procurement teams have to reassess suppliers and build alternatives within days and weeks, while the business still expects cost and quality to hold. His conclusion: in times like these, speed is the only real hedge against volatility.

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KNF Neuberger. One procurement organization across four manufacturing sites

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KNF Neuberger in Trenton, New Jersey, is one of four manufacturing centers of the KNF Group, with the others located in Germany and Switzerland. KNF builds diaphragm pumps and systems for gases and liquids, with medical as the primary market and further applications in environmental, industrial printing and laboratory products. Trenton is both a sales center and a manufacturing site: it buys finished pumps from its sister companies and produces locally for North American customers with a global manufacturing footprint. A few years ago, KNF set up a formal procurement organization with written commodity strategies and lead buyers per commodity and supplier, working in a matrix across Germany, Switzerland and the United States. To move away from Excel-based, largely manual processes that the ERP system could not cover, the team selected Tacto as its SRM platform.

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Total landed cost. Why the ex works price is no longer enough

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A high share of KNF's product is imported. Over the years, Trenton has localized machined and fabricated parts as well as commercial components, while tooled parts such as injection-molded plastic and elastomer components are shared with the sister factories in Europe and sourced internationally. The additional layer of tariffs over the past year and a half, plus air imports several times a week and one to two ocean deliveries per week, made total landed cost the deciding figure.

Tom Yanowsky walks through the full cost stack: the ex works price, air or ocean freight, import duties that may be flat, depend on the country of origin or fall under Section 232 for steel, aluminum and copper, one-time tooling costs, engineering and quality resources for first article or PPAP, and ongoing inventory and logistics costs. KNF has modeled this in Excel because the ERP system cannot run it across a bill of materials. The models are now stored in the SRM so that buyers at all four locations, some of them six hours ahead, work from the same basis for make or buy and local sourcing decisions.

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Findings. How AI flags negotiation opportunities at KNF

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In Tacto, KNF works with recommendations called findings. They are generated in two ways: through a weekly automated analysis that pulls data from the ERP system and compares it with global economic data such as energy and metal costs to derive should costs, or through an analysis a buyer requests directly. One example Tom Yanowsky gives: when one plant receives a significantly larger customer order, the shift in volume across the four plants opens room to renegotiate with suppliers, set up blanket orders or adjust forecasts. The SRM also shows supplier capabilities by commodity across all teams.

Tom Yanowsky is clear about the role of the tool: the ERP system remains the basis for ordering and documentation, and like a Power BI report, the output is only as good as the inputs and the logic behind it. The tool speeds up the work, makes information visible and turns it into an action plan, while the team takes the decisions.

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Tacto Intelligence. Every purchase price becomes a living cost model

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Johannes Groll explains the two layers of Tacto Intelligence. The procurement brain combines customer data (order and master data from the ERP system, contracts, bills of materials and 3D CAD files) with Tacto data on raw materials, inflation indices, industry cost structures and supply chain risks. On top of it, more than 100 AI agents check, for example, whether a price contradicts market developments, whether quantities rise unexpectedly or whether plants pay different prices for the same part, and they help execute through RFQs, negotiation preparation and drafted responses to price increase requests.

In the live demo, a magnetic segment bought at $3.85 shows a modeled price 7% below the price paid. The cost model breaks the part down into raw material, energy, machine and labor costs, links them to external indices and can be extended to freight, duties and packaging up to total landed cost or total cost of ownership. Buyers can change assumptions, for example ocean instead of air freight or a different country of origin, and the model recalculates immediately. The same works for several supplier and part combinations side by side. For negotiations, each supplier profile bundles KPIs, market developments, previous agreements and a recommended strategy, and notes from the meeting feed into the next preparation.

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Conclusion

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The KNF Neuberger example shows that protecting margin under tariff and freight pressure starts with knowing the full cost of every part. Teams that can recalculate total landed cost and should cost across thousands of parts quickly make decisions on make or buy, local or imported sourcing and negotiation timing based on facts. In Tom Yanowsky's view, the technology does not replace the ERP system or the team: it speeds up the work and makes the information visible to everyone who needs it.

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Tom Yanowsky (Purchasing Manager at KNF Neuberger) and Johannes Groll (Chief Product Officer at Tacto) show how a US manufacturer that imports a large share of its components calculates total landed cost across ex works price, freight, Section 232 duties, tooling and qualification. They explain how weekly AI findings flag negotiation opportunities across four plants and how Tacto Intelligence turns every purchase price into a living cost model. Includes a live demo and audience Q&A on freight indices and data security.