Attributes of Materials Management Systems

Materials Management encompasses more than just acquiring goods and services. Materials Management deals more importantly with the planning and controlling of all steps necessary to insure that the objectives of price, quality, and quantity are met when and where required. The recommended goals of Materials Management are:

1. Obtaining the best value for purchased materials
2. Assuring supplies are on hand when and where required
3. Reducing inventory to the lowest amount required
4. Assuring quality requirements are met
5. Providing efficient low cost movement of supplies to the site and within site storage (SD-1, p. 3)

Materials managers are necessary to oversee the life-cycle of materials, to coordinate all the functions, to make improvements, and to be sure that materials planning and training functions are well ahead of time. (SD-1, p. 5) In the manufacturing industry, materials management is already highly recognized as a major contributor to improving productivity. Techniques have been developed where demonstrable efficiencies are possible, but these are lacking in the construction industry. As the construction industry moves toward computer-based data systems, the use of these products needs to be determined cost efficient based on the size of the project. The cost of materials represents more than half of the total cost of today's typical capital project. Lack of materials when needed at the job site is typically the single most frequent cause of construction delays. (SD-27, p. 1)