It is refer to the items/goods/material held by a construction firm/contractor for to be used at site.
Example of inventory items on a construction site include items on a construction site include cement, steel, bolts, nails, dozer, bricks, paint, etc.
Inventory Management
- Construction inventory management is a means by which construction companies and suppliers can keep track of materials, equipment and plant.
- This is particularly important when a construction company has multiple projects to manage, as efficient scheduling can become very complicated.
- Two major methods for inventory management are just in time (JIT) and material requirement planning (MRP).
Objectives
- To ensure that the supply of raw material and finished goods will remain continuous.
- To minimize carrying cost of inventory.
- To keep investment in inventory at optimum level.
- To reduce the losses of theft, obsolescence and wastage etc.
- To make arrangement for use of slow moving items.
- To minimize inventory ordering cost.
Inventory Control Methods
- Inventory control is a very complex process and multiple information sources are require to define the control mechanism.
- In order to control the wastages through misplacing, improper stacking, different types of inventory techniques are followed.
- Most commonly used inventory control method are :
- ABC classification ( Always Better Control )
- VED Analysis ( Vital, Essential, Desirable )
- SDE Analysis ( Scarce, Difficult, Easy to obtain )
- JIT (Just In Time )
Problems in Inventory control at construction site -
- Material are scattered in different areas of the project.
- The location of the stores frequently get changed which indeed to lose materials.
- If two contractors are working on the same premises, the chances of the losing material are very high.
