AN APPRAISAL OF MATERIAL MANAGEMENT CONCEPT AS A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY IN AN ORGANIZATION (A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA BOTTLING COMPANY, ENUGU)

Concept of Material Management  

This chapter of the research work intended to review the different literature with report to the study topic. it involves complete information that exists in certain journal article as well as books written by various authors on the subject matters. The term materials management is subject to different interpretations by different people and authors, some professional writers defined materials management in various authors. Some professional writers defined materials management in various ways. Cook and Rubbel (2002) defined material management as practical today, it can be defined as a confederacy of traditional materials activities bound by a common ideas of an integrated management approach to planning acquisition, conversion flow & distribution of production materials from raw materials stated to finished product state. The above definition implies that material management is generally concerned with production control, inventory control, purchasing, expenditure, traffic, material handling, welfare, receiving, shopping, scrap and surplus disposition and customers services However, the term material management is frequently used when only some of these functions are included, he based his material management concept on the theory that more effective control over an important aspect of a company’s operation can be obtained by grouping together all department involved in anyway with the material used by the company under this concepts all of the aforementioned departments are included. These are department which handle different of the same problem, namely the efficient and economical planning and scheduling of the materials used in the manufacturing process.

The Significance of Materials Management Concept 

According to Iornum (2001) all the definitions of materials management suggest that the concept advocates the coordination of the activities of some semi-autonomous functions like purchasing, store stock control, transport and distribution etc. with the view to eliminate possible conflicts that might occur when  they are performed  independently. According to him, the concept also attempts to guard against the incidence of sub-optimization managers of individual material functions mentioned earlier usually think narrowly interm of the unique responsibilities associated with their specific function. Each of them tends to excel in his area of responsibilities ignoring corporate interest. A material manager however, thinks in the interest of the entire firm as a whole. Not only that, by bringing together material cost centers under one umbrella, thereby guarding sub-optimization or un-coordinated cost reduction effort which can be misleading, material management attempt to ensure better cost reduction and consequently enhances greater profitability. One of the paramount advantages of material management is that, it forces co-ordination between purchasing and production control. In view of the above, the researcher view the work and contribution of Lee and Dobbler in what material management should be as not sufficient enough for efficient management because of how it is been implemented in various organization today. Some elements are reducing in their concept of material management.

The Material Flow System

Material management is generally concerned with the flow of material from their source, through the production process, to the consumers