Along with the growth of economy, the telecommunication industry also was developed to satisfy the demands for using the internet, voice, fax, data, multimedia, and entertainment of individual, community and company.
The erection for self support steel towers for telecommunication industry is one of the difficult infrastructures in Vietnam. Two main problems of telecom projects are:
1. Difficult geographical and topography conditions to access the construction sites to deliver materials.
2. Difficulties of fabricating the steel on site
These problems are different for each project since every project has particular geography and topography, and problems are not only happen for purchasing and managing materials but also in transporting materials to site.
Nguyen Huu Phuc made a case study which main objective is to find out An Effective Project Materials Management for erecting of self-support steel towers for telecom based on real conditions in Vietnam.
Conclusion
The project material management is major function in construction to assure quality, cost and schedule of project. With good way for project material management, the contractors can reduce project cost and make more profit from project.
An effective material management is not only good techniques for planning, monitoring and control of processes, materials and products at the site, office and factory but also is good function to avoid the most frequently occurring problem and the most frequently occurring place or step of problems.
The planning is the first step to do the project material management. It is a blueprint to set up sound basis for project life cycle. Due to data of planning, the activities for processes behind the planning were determined. Thus, planning is major figures to get the success of project. If the actual work does not meet the requirement of the planning for schedule or budget, the project will fail.
The appropriate organization in construction for each project and for the success depends on personal skills of members and their geographical location in the department or on the site. The skills of members in organization are very important to do their tasks.
One more thing, the purchasing in the project must connect between planning for requirement and ordering of demand for material and equipment on the site. The purchasing ensures that materials and equipment are supplied with competitive price, on schedule work and good quality. In purchasing, the relationship with suppliers and performance of suppliers are keys to have the effective material management
For the transportation, the company can save the cost through out the negotiated agreements or special agreement such as special scope of transportation work or special duty of transporters or special for handling and packaging. In addition, the survey for conditions of transportation also has the main role to eliminate the risk in the traffic.
The activities for monitoring and controlling of estimation, ordering, checking of the performance and surplus on the site are supported by requirement planning and actual work on the site. It affects project productivity and other factors in the project. Solving procedures for improving the site monitoring and controlling are requirements that the project manager must be consider.
According to the contract, the quality always is the most important provision. It involves all material management cycle and affects all project phase. Accordingly, quality assurance and control related with all responsible of contractor, suppliers and owner.
Recommendations
In order to improve actions and processes for project management in the future, from this study, some proposals are given to correct activities and reduce cost for materials in construction such as:
A plan for short interval planning, monthly planning and project planning should be written down and communicated to the related people. In planning for material management, the material that it has the high value, when comparison with project cost, must be cared first. The information for planning must be more detail and complying with the scope. Beside, historical data and job review should be collected to help us to learn from past successes and failure. It is a tool to plan with accurate data to implement the work on site.
Top leader must support the organization for project material management and have the members with appropriate skill based on the scope of work. The individual must know his responsibility and his role in the organization.
The evaluated suppliers must be checked carefully not only with their history but also their performance in the present. The price, quantity, quality, delivery time, the rights and penalties must be defined clearly in the contract with suppliers.
The materials for the project must be tested to meet the standard on the sources before using on the site. When the site manager receives these materials, they must check against to ensure the quality of material that they use for work. In addition, the procedure work must be inspected and review to ensure the quality of products.
The communication for the organization and other parties must set up with appropriate ways to connect all related people. With good communication processes, the contacts of related people will be come easily to avoid the refusing actions.
For further study, the study should research deeply on material cost variance and behaviors of workers when they use the materials on the site to get more effective material management.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
The reported project relate materials management in construction and applications for erecting of steel towers based on real conditions of Viet Nam to identify an effective process of the project materials management for erecting steel towers in Viet Nam.
With using qualitative approach, the report explains more detail about project materials management when using the single case study to maintain the real conditions of materials management in the project to analyse the situations to find the problems and solution for it.
In this report, the documents will summarize the knowledge for the project materials management in project materials planning, in project materials logistic management, in supplier management, in project materials monitoring and controlling and focus on some problems in erecting of steel towers in Viet Nam.
Based on the knowledge for the project materials management and the case study, what are the advantages for the project materials management and the disadvantages are faced in erecting the steel towers in Viet Nam. For example: location, scope, size, transportation....
Besides, the analyses also provide some figures to prove the knowledge for the materials management in a logical and discuss about some effective materials management to find the conclusions. And then, the recommendations are established for the effective process in the future.