In the landscape of American manufacturing, legacy is often synonymous with stability. For TAMKO Building Products, an 80-year-old independent leader in roofing and waterproofing, that stability was built on manufacturing excellence and deep-rooted family values. However, as the global supply chain moved toward a more volatile, data-driven era, the company recognised a "white space" in its organisation: a strategic procurement function.
Dean Czuma, who would go on to become the Chief Procurement Officer, heard of the opportunity whilst he was on a decade-long hiatus from internal procurement leadership and a leader at McKinsey & Company. Dean was drawn back to the front lines by the opportunity to build something from the ground up. At TAMKO, he isn't just managing spend, he is leading a holistic procurement transformation, positioning the function as the engine for opening strategic degrees of freedom rather than a tactical back-office necessity.
The greenfield diagnosis: Threading the needle
Transforming an organisation requires a forensic understanding of what makes the company tick. Dean’s approach to diagnosing TAMKO’s needs was a blend of high-level strategy and "boots-on-the-ground" immersion.
"Diagnosing TAMKO prior to building the function required extensive listening, learning and having a lot of candid and expansive conversations," Dean explains. This included getting very close to the ethos on the manufacturing floor, in the warehouses and with our customers – to understand the realities of our value chain.
He identified a company that excelled at its core mission and at the same time had a vacuum in strategic procurement. "I wanted to thread the needle of what the white space consists of and how it connects very well with the things that we're great at", he says. "Not to disrupt the company, but to fit in and then drive value and add on top of the cultural foundation."
Dean’s diagnostic toolkit involved asking "powerful questions" that shifted the focus from transactional to strategic:
- What are the gaps to hitting on all cylinders from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective?
- Are we thinking about the price of a product or the landed cost?
- How do we move from a reactive "once the material is in the door" mindset to an end-to-end view from mines and refineries to the roof?
From purchasing to the boardroom
Moving procurement from the back office to the boardroom is a heavy lift in most companies with a long history. Resistance is often the default setting. However, Dean notes that at TAMKO, the hurdle wasn't resistance at all, but the need to merge "heritage practice" thinking with modern strategic levers.
"Purchasing people might be really good at negotiating price or setting up a contract," Dean observes, "but how about taking a collaborative approach or really tearing down a product, cost structure or process and identifying what the deeper sources of value are?"
To overcome the inertia of "how we’ve always done it," Dean adopted the role of an "evangelist and vision creator." He argues that sustained value doesn't come from being the loudest voice in the room, but from proving the strategy through execution. "I’m not only accountable for shaping the strategy with the executive leadership team and board, but for gaining the hearts and minds of our colleagues to deliver. That’s where the sustained value comes from."
By aligning procurement goals with the board's priorities, specifically EBITDA impact and manufacturing efficacy, Dean ensured procurement can become an "execution partner" in the company’s broader growth strategy.
The AI catalyst: Moving beyond the "nuisance work"
While many organisations treat AI as a futuristic concept, Dean is already integrating it into the production and supply chain decisions at TAMKO. The goal is to use AI as a new source of insight and assistance that sits atop foundational execution systems (like SAP), accelerating the pace of impact.
The team is excited. Dean reflected, “We’re working to position AI and a digital-first approach to work for us in accelerating insights, workflow and impact.”
One of the standout implementations is dSilo’s Procure AI Agents, which deliver actionable spend insights. Dean described this partnership as “redefining how we see and act on value.”
There has long been a struggle for procurement and business organisations to fully open the aperture on where total value improvement exists, but Dean says that dSilo solves that.
“By combining functional expertise, AI and advanced visualisation, dSilo’s AI Agents help surface insights embedded in our enterprise data landscape and deliver them in ways that drive decisions,” he adds.
It has given the team at TAMKO the ability to synthesise the data into forward-looking intelligence and actions – with results seeing a meaningful increase in the proactivity and pace at which the sourcing team can move from insight to action. “dSilo sits at the front of our value creation strategy – and they've been a true partner in tailoring its Procure AI Agents to fit our needs,” Dean says.
The impact of AI is particularly evident in the "front end" of procurement, the knowledge-gathering phase that used to take weeks. For example, Dean highlights the "disruptive aspect" of AI in replacing expensive, static industry reports:
“We look at a good bit of commodity and industry data in the course of our business practices. Given that, we started challenging ourselves to leverage AI to tackle periodic reporting. The initial push was to build an agent and see how close we can get to a report. Within a couple of days, the category leader came back and showed us, “I can get all of what I need, when I need it, vs. paying multiple thousands of dollars to obtain parts and pieces and things I don’t need".
By mastering prompt engineering, Dean’s team can now generate insightful cost models in minutes rather than weeks. This "incredible accelerator of knowledge" frees up the team's bandwidth to focus on what humans do best: building relationships and solving complex problems.
Redefining value: Resilience, cost and speed
In the modern procurement landscape, the traditional focus on cost is no longer sufficient. Dean has redrafted the definition of "impact" at TAMKO to include a balanced trio of resilience, cost and speed.
"Over the years, the procurement team was much more focused on ensuring reliable supply for manufacturing, that hasn't changed and it shouldn't change," he says. "But now... we focus more across the value chain and we add tools to accelerate the pace of that, but we’re now taking a different look to be more proactive and not just reactive."
This proactivity extends to how TAMKO manages risk. It is no longer just about financial health; it’s about cybersecurity scores, reputational risk and the stability of long logistics chains stretching from mines and oil fields to the manufacturing floor.
One of those vital suppliers is Specialty Granules, which Dean says: “SGI represents what a long-term, trust-built supplier relationship should look like.”
It works as a provider of critical inputs to TAMKO’s end products, with Dean highlighting its commitment to quality, safety and customer reliability, which has made them “indispensable across the full range of our business cycles.”
Plus, for both teams, they are seeing an evolution of their relationship – moving well beyond price and volume conversations into what Dean calls “genuine collaboration”, he adds: “Exploring innovation, building supply chain flexibility and identifying value across our collective value chain. That shift in mindset, from transactional supplier to strategic partner, is a direct reflection of SGI's values and their commitment to us as a core customer.”
Key metrics for success
For Dean’s team, success is measured through a "mosaic" of KPIs that cascade from the top-level vision:
- Financial impact: Moving the needle on the cost of goods sold and other areas
- Material consistency: Ensuring reliability through deep supplier collaboration
Risk considerations: Using AI to monitor the "health" of the entire supply base
The power of contagious collaboration
Perhaps the most significant outcome of the transformation is the shift in culture. Dean describes the work in procurement as "contagious." As the function delivers wins, like unlocking investment through cost efficiencies, other departments are beginning to see the value. This is an essential element of matching the heritage and new capabilities as one.
"The level of collaboration that’s going on... with our R&D, marketing, manufacturing, IT and supplier partners, is continuing to drive a behaviour change," Dean says. "We’re getting more and more comfortable working together to drive what a solution might be."
This collaboration is particularly vital in managing the "agentic environment" Dean envisions for the future – where technology acts as an additional colleague, handling the "repetitive nuisance work" so that the human team can focus on the "relentlessness of quality."
TAMKO in 2026
By the end of 2026, Dean hopes to have a procurement function with the "muscle memory" of an elite strategic unit. He envisions a "source-to-pay" organisation fully enabled by technology, allowing a small but amazing team to deliver outsized value.
"Elevating the power of procurement to enable the journey to the next level is a place I'd like us to be," he concludes.
Under Dean’s leadership, TAMKO is proving that an 80-year-old company can find new degrees of freedom through procurement. It is a story of how a company with no formal procurement function built one that doesn't just buy materials but actively shapes the company’s strategic future.
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Dean Czuma
Chief Procurement Officer