CE 763 Materials Management in Construction

3 Credit Hours

Fundamental concepts and methods; construction specific models for integrated materials management;; vendor analysis and “best-buy;” materials requirement planning and control; management of material waste; automated materials tracking; materials handling; study of current issues; development of a practical solution to a real-world problem.

Prerequisite

Graduate Standing.  Degree or professional experience in or related to civil engineering or construction.

Course Objectives

Typically in construction the focus of academic study is on activities that happen directly at the construction site.  Scheduling, productivity, equipment, materials, assemblies, and methods of construction are typically studied.  Material management (MM), on the other hand, focuses on construction and material activities that occur mostly outside the construction site in support of the activities that occur on it.  Purchasing, organization and personnel, planning, material requirements, expediting, QAand QC, transportation, site material management, surplus materials, and waste are studied.  This course focuses on the neglected, but critically important, area of MM.

One definition of materials management is a system for planning and controlling all necessary efforts to make certain that the right quality and quantity of materials and equipment are specified in a timely manner, are obtained at a reasonable cost, and are available when needed. Included within materials management are the traditional materials management tasks mentioned above as well as material takeoff, engineering interface, supplier inquiry and evaluation, logistics, field control, warehousing, and automated system planning.  It is all of these tasks that are addressed in CE 763.

Material Management tasks are similar to those seen in industrial engineering and manufacturing.  Thus, this course may also be of interest to students in those disciplines.  The course will also touch upon the actual process of material management and how that process can be automated using modern technology.

Course Requirements

The course consists of lectures, weekly reading, assigned group homework projects, and quizzes.

The course will utilize a project materials management handbook and other reading materials as well as relevant journal articles and a case study. These are provided and made available on Google Drive. The course will provide hands on activities in the form of regular assignments. It will likely include three field visits, one to a construction site, one to a warehouse site, and an office site visit. There will also be guest lectures from professionals with qualifications in one or more of the study topics.

Homework assignments will be graded and a number of quizzes will be given to assess students’ retention of the material.

Textbook

No textbook is required. Materials, including lecture notes, resource documents, reports, and journal articles will be made available through the use of Google Drive.

Updated: 11/08/2022