Procurement and Materials Management: A Guide to Effective Project Execution

Surplus materials are a result of design changes, errors in estimates and takeoffs, improper site warehousing, duplicate buying efforts, inventory errors, and poor field control of issued materials. (IR7-3, Sec.2, p. 55) Material surplus can generally be held to 1% or less when an effective system is in place and the takeoff is being executed from the final design drawings. If the takeoff is performed before the final drawings are complete, the bulk materials surplus can exceed 10%. An effective materials management system will reduce surplus from a range of 5% to 10% of bulk materials to about 1% to 3% of bulk materials purchased.

The materials quality cycle involves establishing organizational responsibilities, supplier relations, level of surveillance and inspection, and receiving quality control. Quality control includes the actual inspection, testing, and other essential activities. Conformance is achieved when the supplier meets the established requirements specified by the engineer. An important concept in quality management is that the actual conformance to requirements is the responsibility of the supplier. Having a positive supplier relationship is crucial. Quality assurance is the planned or systematic actions necessary to ensure product conformance.

IR7-3, Procurement and Materials Management: A Guide to Effective Project Execution

Appendix B

• Materials Plan Outline – An outline that spans the entire life cycle of material planning and is intended to be used as the basis for development of the actual written materials plan for any given project.

Appendix D

• Post-Project Evaluation of a Materials Management System – A questionnaire to be filled out by project materials manager (and other group managers) to rate and evaluate the effectiveness of a materials management system and offer concrete statistics and percentages of a project (e.g., number of PO’s, freight cost, percent of on time delivery, etc.)

Appendix E

• Basic File Structure of a Relational Database Materials Management Computer System – A conceptual visualization of a Materials Management Computer System, described and demonstrated as a collection of related data files or tables with program modules.