Assessment of material management on building construction sites (a case study of stivo and consar construction companies in the Kumasi metropolis)

Abstract

This study considers an assessment of material management on building construction sites. Materials management is the integrated processes that consist of the people, organization, technology and procedures used to effectively identify, quantify, acquire, inspect, transport, receive, store, and preserve the materials. Basically, the issues of material management are concerned with the planning, identification, procuring, storage, receiving and distribution of materials. The researcher reached the goals of this research through purposive sampling method and a structured questionnaire administered to 26 participants in different construction backgrounds from different selected sites in the Kumasi Metropolis and field observation from January to June, 2016. The responsive rate was about 70% of participants. The Likert scale was used to rank the various factors and analyzed with SPSS and Spreadsheet. Among the challenges involved in materials management on building construction site in Kumasi Metropolis are poor handling of materials, inadequate security structures, delivery of wrong quantity of materials, poor stock control techniques, absence of closed circuit television cameras and improper planning of work. To overcome material management challenges on construction sites, material managers should do the following: Planning and monitoring material schedule on all projects; making it compulsory for the store keepers to record and use inventory of material on daily basis during the construction process, to enable them alert or inform the necessary authority if there is shortage of any material, for prompt ordering; closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras should be installed to increase security on site. The researcher arrived on the conclusion that quality assurance or control processes should be put in place to ensure effective waste management as it improves the schedule and planning of project delivery.