Study of Contractors Materials Management in Private Building Construction Projects-A Study of Selected Building Sites, in Addis Ababa
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Date
2016-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Material management is a very important and vital aspect for every company since construction
materials usually constitute a major portion of the total cost in a building construction project.
In the study, the current material management practice, problems of material management,
strategies for effective material management, congestion of site due to improper placement of
materials as well as the ICT tools used for managing materials on building construction site were
explored. A semi-structured interview was administered to respondents in ten different
construction sites in each sub-city of Addis Ababa. The studies explored the current material
management practice in terms of the material requirement planning, procurement, handling,
inventory control, quality control and surplus materials. The findings reveal that the material
schedule was not in alignment with the master schedule also reveals that the tasks of material
management are under different departments making the control and identification difficult. Late
delivery of materials was the major problem of poor material management. The attitude of the
society, no proper procedure before mobilization, the urgency to meet the schedule, accepting
rework and having no system for improvement or change were the reasons for the congestion of
site. Putting into consideration the problems of material management, the study explored some of
the strategies for effective materials management such as: the use of pre-fabrication, effective
planning of site layout, the use of ready mixed concrete. Furthermore, the ICT tools used for
managing materials in building construction projects were explored which the interviewees
explained using the common basic ICT tools: Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and phones. The ICT
tools which can be one-off the tools for facilitating material management were not used due lack
of awareness.
The study indicated that before making any drastic change either be it in ICT or any other, first
the construction industry need to accept the congestion of site due to in proper placement of
materials as a problem. After accepting the problem, the use of the Kaizen five approach could
be applied which are: Sort (sort what is needed and remove the rest), Straighten (make things
visible, location can be readily identified), Scrub (Clean to provide a pleasing appearance),
Spread (Clean/check, give training and improve the work area), and Standardization and Selfdiscipline
(Establish schedule to clean and straighten the area)
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Keywords
Material management