Abstract:
Materials or inventories are essential requirements for any company to fulfill their customers‟ needs and wants. Managing this inventory and delivering the materials as required is the influential segment for the success of construction projects today. The inventory control is affected by its adequate storage space, ordering and handling, and complete and up-to-date information regarding on-site stock. A better or poor inventory control system can be made of exactly the planning based on having an effective inventory management process. This study aims to assess the current practice of inventory control and to evaluate using the economic order quantity model in Bahir Dar city. A questionnaire survey study design was used to identify the practice, factors, challenges of the inventory control system, and advantages and disadvantages of the EOQ model. 86 questionnaires were distributed to the key personnel who are involved in the public building projects from 104 population to obtain their perception practice of inventory management, factor and challenges for effective material management toward the system that were extracted from an extensive literature review, for effective inventory management and the variables were mapped in a frequency table and analyzed through calculating mean score formula and graphical presentation such as bar charts were used. Questionnaires, interviews, and secondary data from reports and the internet was used as a data collection instrument, analyzed by Microsoft Excel and SPSS software applying descriptive statistics.
According to these data, the overall inventory practice was not effective; due to judgemental demanding system, bulk purchase with small storage area, and lack of good supervision. and the main contributing factors are MRP, proper cash flow control identifying and selecting a supplier and the challenge of the availability of the item on time in the complete set and cost of the item lead to the poor practice of inventory control and awareness in implementing inventory management techniques. Accordingly, a scientific method of purchasing perpetual controlling and a good inventory control practice is needed such as economic order quantity model, because the utilization of this model will assist the association with knowing the optimal number of items to order within a year and when to place new requests for every item.
In the end, based on the finding of the study, conclusions are drawn and recommendations for stakeholders and topics for future studies were forwarded.