Waterproofing Seattle

Materials Management from POME by Gautam Koppala

Materials Management

Materials management is an important element in project planning and control. Materials represent a major expense especially in construction industry, so minimizing procurement or purchase costs presents important opportunities for reducing costs. Poor materials management can also result in large and avoidable costs during construction. First, if materials are purchased early, capital may be tied up and interest charges incurred on the excess inventory of materials. Even worse, materials may deteriorate during storage or be stolen unless special care is taken. For example, electrical equipment often must be stored in waterproof locations. Second, delays and extra expenses may be incurred if materials required for particular activities are not available. Accordingly, insuring a timely flow of material is an important concern of project managers.

Materials management is not just a concern during the monitoring stage in which project is taking place. Decisions about material procurement may also be required during the initial planning and scheduling stages. For example, activities can be inserted in the project schedule to represent purchasing of major items such as elevators for buildings. The availability of materials may greatly influence the schedule in projects with a fast track or very tight time schedule: sufficient time for obtaining the necessary materials must be allowed. In some case, more expensive suppliers or shippers may be employed to save time.

Materials management is also a problem at the organization level if central purchasing and inventory control is used for standard items. In this case, the various projects undertaken by the organization would present requests to the central purchasing group. In turn, this group would maintain inventories of standard items to reduce the delay in providing material or to obtain lower costs due to bulk purchasing. This organizational materials management problem is analogous to inventory control in any organization facing continuing demand for particular items.

Materials ordering problems lend themselves particularly well to computer based systems to insure the consistency and completeness of the purchasing process. In the manufacturing realm, the use of automated materials requirements planning systems is common. In these systems, the master production schedule, inventory records and product component lists are merged to determine what items must be ordered, when they should be ordered, and how much of each item should be ordered in each time period. The heart of these calculations is simple arithmetic: the projected demand for each material item in each period is subtracted from the available inventory. When the inventory becomes too low, a new order is recommended. For items that are non-standard or not kept in inventory, the calculation is even simpler since no inventory must be considered. With a materials requirement system, much of the detailed record keeping is automated and project managers are alerted to purchasing requirements.

Benefits for materials management systems.

From a study of twenty heavy construction sites from one survey, the following benefits from the introduction of materials management systems were noted:

• In one project, a 6% reduction in craft labor costs occurred due to the improved availability of materials as needed on site. On other projects, an 8% savings due to reduced delay for materials was estimated.
• A comparison of two projects with and without a materials management system revealed a change in productivity from 1.92 man-hours per unit without a system to 1.14 man-hours per unit with a new system. Again, much of this difference can be attributed to the timely availability of materials.
• Warehouse costs were found to decrease 50% on one project with the introduction of improved inventory management, representing a savings of $ 92,000. Interest charges for inventory also declined, with one project reporting a cash flow savings of $ 85,000 from improved materials management.

Against these various benefits, the costs of acquiring and maintaining a materials management system has to be compared. However, management studies suggest that investment in such systems can be quite beneficial.

Material Procurement and Delivery

The main sources of information for feedback and control of material procurement are requisitions, bids and quotations, purchase orders and subcontracts, shipping and receiving documents, and invoices. For projects involving the large scale use of critical resources, the owner may initiate the procurement procedure even before the selection of a constructor in order to avoid shortages and delays. Under ordinary circumstances, the constructor will handle the procurement to shop for materials with the best price/performance characteristics specified by the designer. Some overlapping and re handling in the procurement process is unavoidable, but it should be minimized to insure timely delivery of the materials in good condition.

The materials for delivery to and from a construction site may be broadly classified as :

(1) Bulk materials,

(2) Standard off-the-shelf materials, and

(3) fabricated members or units.

The process of delivery, including transportation, field storage and installation will be different for these classes of materials. The equipment needed to handle and haul these classes of materials will also be different.

Bulk materials refer to materials in their natural or semi-processed state, such as earthwork to be excavated, wet concrete mix, etc. which are usually encountered in large quantities in construction. Some bulk materials such as earthwork or gravels may be measured in bank (solid in situ) volume. Obviously, the quantities of materials for delivery may be substantially different when expressed in different measures of volume, depending on the characteristics of such materials.

Standard piping and valves are typical examples of standard off-the-shelf materials which are used extensively in the chemical processing industry. Since standard off-the-shelf materials can easily be stockpiled, the delivery process is relatively simple.

Fabricated members such as steel beams and columns for buildings are pre-processed in a shop to simplify the field erection procedures. Welded or bolted connections are attached partially to the members which are cut to precise dimensions for adequate fit. Similarly, steel tanks and pressure vessels are often partly or fully fabricated before shipping to the field. In general, if the work can be done in the shop where working conditions can better be controlled, it is advisable to do so, provided that the fabricated members or units can be shipped to the construction site in a satisfactory manner at a reasonable cost.

As a further step to simplify field assembly, an entire wall panel including plumbing and wiring or even an entire room may be prefabricated and shipped to the site. While the field labor is greatly reduced in such cases, “materials” for delivery are in fact manufactured products with value added by another type of labor. With modern means of transporting construction materials and fabricated units, the percentages of costs on direct labor and materials for a project may change if more prefabricated units are introduced in the construction process.

In the construction industry, materials used by a specific craft are generally handled by craftsmen, not by general labor. Thus, electricians handle electrical materials, pipe fitters handle pipe materials, soft ware engineers use the PC’s pertinent material etc. This multiple handling diverts scarce skilled craftsmen and contractor supervision into activities which do not directly contribute to construction. Since contractors are not normally in the freight business, they do not perform the tasks of freight delivery efficiently. All these factors tend to exacerbate the problems of freight delivery for very large projects.

Tradeoffs of Costs in Materials Management.

To illustrate the type of trade-offs encountered in materials management, suppose that a particular item is to be ordered for a project. The amount of time required for processing the order and shipping the item is uncertain. Consequently, the project manager must decide how much lead time to provide in ordering the item. Ordering early and thereby providing a long lead time will increase the chance that the item is available when needed, but it increases the costs of inventory and the chance of spoilage on site.

Case Study: Freight delivery for the Alaska Pipeline Project

The freight delivery system for the Alaska pipeline project was set up to handle 600,000 tons of materials and supplies. This tonnage did not include the pipes which comprised another 500,000 tons and were shipped through a different routing system.

The complexity of this delivery system is illustrated in Figure 4-2. The rectangular boxes denote geographical locations. The points of origin represent plants and factories throughout the US and elsewhere. Some of the materials went to a primary staging point in Seattle and some went directly to Alaska. There were five ports of entry: Valdez, Anchorage, Whittier, Seward and Prudhoe Bay. There was a secondary staging area in Fairbanks and the pipeline itself was divided into six sections. Beyond the Yukon River, there was nothing available but a dirt road for hauling. The amounts of freight in thousands of tons shipped to and from various locations are indicated by the numbers near the network branches (with arrows showing the directions of material flows) and the modes of transportation are noted above the branches. In each of the locations, the contractor had supervision and construction labor to identify materials, unload from transport, determine where the material was going, repackage if required to split shipments, and then re-load material on outgoing transport.

Process plant equipment procurement

The procurement and delivery of bulk materials items such as piping electrical and structural elements involves a series of activities if such items are not standard and/or in stock. The times required for various activities in the procurement of such items might be estimated to be as follows:

Activities

Duration
(days)

Cumulative
Duration

Requisition ready by designer
Owner approval
Inquiry issued to vendors
Vendor quotations received
Complete bid evaluation by designer
Owner approval
Place purchase order
Receive preliminary shop drawings
Receive final design drawings
Fabrication and delivery

0
5
3
15
7
5
5
10
10
60-200

0
5
8
23
30
35
40
50
60
120-260

As a result, this type of equipment procurement will typically require four to nine months. Slippage or contraction in this standard schedule is also possible, based on such factors as the extent to which a fabricator is busy.

Gautam Koppala,

POME Author

About the Author

GAUTAM KOPPALA, With over   a decade, track record of successful leadership, excellent results through strategic skills in driving revenue and profit growth. Demonstrated ability to identify and trouble shoot critical issues impacting productivity, cost, distribution, marketing, Strategic positioning, sales and financial operations, with innate ability to build and maintain strong client relationships in operations. Expert in distilling and managing processes, enhancing internal structures, and promoting multi-skilled team competencies via nurturing mentorship and inspirational leadership. Engagements have spanned operational, strategic, technological and change management roles. Academically, I am a cum laude graduate with a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (B-Tech E.E.E.) and a post graduate in Masters in Human Resources Management (M.H.R.M.) and Masters of Foreign Trade (M.F.T.). As you will see my Post Graduation’s were been studied part-time, as well as working full-time as an Engineer. I feel that this demonstrates my ability to maintain dedication, motivation and enthusiasm for a project management over a long period of time. In addition, balancing full-time work with study has perfected my time-management and organizational skills. I believe that my college degrees and gamut certifications in combination with my extensive broad-based work experience along with my drive, resourcefulness and determination, would make me an excellent candidate for a senior management position with any company. Highlights of my background include Operations related Commercial, Supply chain, Sales with a magnificent experience in Project management, technically oriented towards Automation and Security Systems in Industrial and Building sectors. Presently, writing a book on Projects and Operations Management (comprise of 12 volumes, 6K pages), and awaited for the reputed publications. These books can be checked in Google books and other search engines too.

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