Materials tracking practices for inventory management in construction projects

Inventory is important especially in construction project as the proper amount of inventory will ensure that all construction activities will be able to carry out according to the planned schedules. Inadequate amount of inventory will result in job stoppage due to materials required for conducting the work could not be specified at time they are needed, waste of labour working hours, and schedule delays. Material tracking is important especially in managing inventory as construction materials contribute to major part of the total project costs. However, materials tracking in construction projects were bound with several issues that contribute difficulties in managing inventory. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify several problems on current materials tracking for inventory management practices in construction projects. Several case studies which involved semi-structured interviews with the main contractors specifically site managers, site engineers and site supervisors has been carried out to identify current material tracking problems which bound Malaysian construction projects. The case study data was analysed using Matrix Table in order to make it clear and easy to be interpreted. The findings reveal that construction projects in Malaysia are using manual material tracking practices which has many drawbacks. The main problems within Malaysian construction projects regarding material tracking practices are excessive paper-based report, lack of up-to-date information regarding the status of materials, theft and labour intensive processes. Thus, there is a need for the application of sophisticated technology such as RFID to improve materials tracking practices for the purpose of inventory management in construction projects.

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