Inventory

It is a stock of goods. These goods are maintained on hand near a business location.

 

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.

                    

        

cement inventory
                                  

steel inventory

                                   

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 :

1. ABC classification ( Always Better Control )
2. VED Analysis ( Vital, Essential, Desirable )
3. SDE Analysis ( Scarce, Difficult, Easy to obtain )
4. 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.