ABSTRACT
Materials management is the management process for planning and controlling all necessary efforts to make certain that the right quality and quantity of materials and equipment are appropriately specified in a timely manner, are obtained at a reasonable cost. Industry leaders have focused their attention beyond the traditional engineering design effort and normal construction activities to include materials management as an integral third element of project management. Site materials management has been seen to have well-defined and restricted limits of responsibility which started only with the receipt of materials at the jobsite and ceased as soon as the materials were released to the crafts. While cost-effective materials management systems address all of the functions of materials management in a planned and organized way, three of the functions have a more direct and definite impact on site productivity: planning and communications, field material control, and computer systems.
