Evaluation of the use of modern technologies for effective material management in South African construction industry

Abstract

A vital building block for construction project globally is construction materials which are huge, costly and are often delivered in great quantities to the construction sites. One of the key roles in the successful completion and delivery of a project is effective construction materials management. However, it has been established that material wastage is a prevalent problem in developing countries which can be tackled with modern technologies for effective material management. It is based on this assertion that this paper focuses on the challenges to use of modern technologies for effective material management in the South African construction industry. The study adopted a quantitative approach where questionnaires were administered to professionals in the South African construction industry. Descriptive statistics tools were used to analyse the gathered data. Findings showed that the common challenges to using of modern technologies for effective material management in the construction in South African are; Scale of construction projects, Cultural barriers, environment challenges, financial challenges, and Behaviours of people in key positions. The way forward are; change in business approaches and procedure, and implementation of skill set is necessary

Adopting quality management (QM) principles in managing facilities management service delivery

“…The second-ranked barrier in this category is P1 (Consumed a significant amount of time and interfere with employee's regular job responsibilities) which it might be the case for an organisation that has a smaller capacity. The heavy workload does impact employee work productivity as it will interfere with their main tasks (Odubiyi et al ., 2019). Therefore, organisations would have to relook at their whole structure whether they have enough workforce to handle the quality transformation or perhaps hiring new employees will be the choice to overcome this barrier.…”

“…Meanwhile, People barriers focus mostly on the employers and employees. For instance, McAdam et al (2019) believed that there is a lack of cooperation and involvement of employees from every level towards adopting QM principles and Odubiyi et al (2019) then relate this with the fact that this implementation consumes time and interferes with employer's regular scope of work. Similar to the adoption of any new practice within an organisation, preparation is key but the lack of proper training among employees (Talib and Rahman, 2015) and lacked qualified employees in QM implementation (Sandstr€ om and Svanberg, 2011;Sharif, 2005) hinder organisations in taking one step forward in adopting QM.…”

“…For instance, McAdam et al. (2019) believed that there is a lack of cooperation and involvement of employees from every level towards adopting QM principles and Odubiyi et al . (2019) then relate this with the fact that this implementation consumes time and interferes with employer's regular scope of work.…”

“…The initiation of the QM practice may also be blocked by the shortage of reliable data and information (Sandström and Svanberg, 2011) and the lack of automation and integration in the technological system (Odubiyi et al ., 2019) for the continuity of the QM processes and procedures. The other structural barriers include the challenge to employ statistical QM tools and approaches (Catalin et al ., 2014) and the possibility of receiving negative FM service delivery impacts from the QM practice (Mosadeghrad, 2014).…”