What is Materials Management?

In the past decade only, this management has gained a lot of the importance as before that the same was realised by the management of the organisation but the same was avoided at the various times under the pressure from the various other resources that needed to be done on the priority as compared to the management of the materials. It was after when the organisations realised that there was a large amount of the wastage that was taking place as at the certain point of the time the company or the firm was not at all knowing what all of the resources the organisation was having and all that was required to be purchased, the resources that the organisation was having were not being used as they were not in the knowledge of the firm and instead of all this, the products that were already present, were being purchased and all that were needed to be purchased were not being bought by the organisation. Hence in the other words it can be said that the organisation must be having the complete form of the knowledge of the various types of the materials that are with the organisation and all that needs to be purchased and all that need not to be purchased.

The management of the materials fins its birth a long way back and it was the department of the production and the manufacturing where the need of the management of the materials was first felt. After this came the turn of the services sector where the organisations were facing a large amount of the problems in this regard and then in the various parts of the world, the hectic research work was carried out by the various forms of the researchers or the scientists and the results that were coming in to the picture very clearly suggested that the correct time has come where there is the requirement of the management of the materials to boost up the growth and have a superior level of the control and the growth too. There are large number of the organisations, companies, firms and even the organisations like the hospitals, schools and the universities who were in fact facing a lot of the problems in this regard and were with the time able to solve all of this after bringing in to the picture the management of the materials. One can take any type of the company or the firm; there is the involvement of the large number of the materials right from the stage of the n put to the last of the out put and even after that in the various kinds of the stages of the marketing and the sales. So it can be said that if the things are not managed in one way at any one of the above mentioned places, it is very much possible that these will be able to show the various kinds of the harmful affects in the later stages as well and hence it becomes necessary to manage the materials right from the first stage to the last stage so that the things can be managed in the best possible way to go with the whole of the process in a very fine way and then get the desired results in the best of the form with the very less amount of the wastage and this wastage can be controlled with the proper amount of the management of the materials.

The management of the materials is in fact required in every segment of the working; it can be in the trading segments to the non trading segments as well. The main focus starts from the very initial amount that the organisation must have the complete and the very correct knowledge of the fact that what all the company requires and all what is actually present already with the company and then after this the company needs to focus on all what is required is required in what amount and hence then depending on all these of these factors it becomes very necessary to develop the strategy in that way only by buying the needed products and one the organisation buys all of these needed products it becomes very necessary to have a look at the way the things are stored by the company as buying the things will prove to be good only if the same are preserved too in a very good way. Any of the material that is not required to be bought due to no use of the same or as a result of being present in the storage already, causes a lot of the wastage and at times if the stored material is not stored in the right way and is being wasted causes a lot of the stress on the organisation financially and the same must be avoided with the help of the management of the material. Any kind of the wastage is directly or indirectly a result of the poor management of the materials and the result of all this is that the cost of the system increases a lot and hence creating new kind of the challenges for the organisation from the time to time. The main purpose of the management of the materials is to look in to the cost factor and adopt the various kinds of the ways and the means by which the same can be kept under the control as if the same will be controlled, the various other factors will automatically be controlled and the company will be able to reduce the budget for all this and will be able to use the same funds in the place where the requirement of all these factors will be much more. So it can be said that the management of the materials has become a very major part of the working of the organisations and must be given the due importance from the time to time as this has the power to take the organisation miles and to the new heights in the various aspects of the working.

There has been a lot of the research work that has been done in this regard and the main researchers who have been following this kind of the research work from the past times are L.J. De Rose, N K Nair and many more. Both of these scientists have always stressed a lot on the working of the organisation with the help of the proper management of the materials. According to the researcher L.J. De Rose, the process of the management of the various kinds of the materials is in fact the proper planning of the materials accompanied by the proper kind of the direction, coordination and the control. All of these parameters in fact act as the pillars of the working of the organisation in cutting down the cost factor and increasing the level of the profit and the same can be done by the proper planning, having the full control of the things and decreasing the level of the wastage by the maximum of the level. The material management plays a very important and an essential role in the processes of the material requirements and also in the case of the inventory requirements and in fact the whole of the process of the manufacturing requires the help of the management of the materials from the time to time in an organisation. The process of the management of the materials starts with the bringing in of the various kinds of the materials to the end of the whole of the process of the manufacturing. The various researchers who have worked in this regard in the past have suggested that the process of the management of the materials must not be avoided and the required appreciation to the whole of this process must be given as the same is very essential and on the out look can look less attractive but the results have shown that the whole of this process has the power to take the organisations to the new kinds of the heights in the operations of the achievements. The process has its large amount of the focus on the fact that the things must not be procured in the air but must be checked at the ground level that how much of the same is already present and how much more of the same is required and then only the things need to be processed further and then after that proper keeping of the things is also very essential in the nature and hence proper storage facilities can also play a very critical and the vital part in the whole of the process. So in the other words it can be said that the whole of the process as explained by the L.J. De Rose is based on the pillars of the planning and then following the same with great level of the importance as this will help the material management to be done in the proper way and help the organisation as a whole to achieve the things in a much better and the desired way.