An Appraisal of Control of Construction Materials in the Nigerian Building Industry: A Case Study of Abuja, Nigeria

An effective project control system is essential to the successful delivery of a construction project. Projects of substantial sizes or complexity need to be continually managed to guarantee any possibility of success. The project team uses control standards to continually check progress against acceptable standards. The study is aimed at studying building production control of materials in the Nigerian building industry. The study focused on articulating the existing knowledge on efficient and effective building production control of materials. Data were collected through the administration of a structured questionnaire to experienced professionals in construction sites and offices. The result shows that 60% of the sites use materials scheduling in controlling materials and the control planning is mostly carried out by quantity surveyors. It was observed that some of the major factors affecting qualitative building production control of materials are; poor planning of materials control, late delivery of materials to site, poor storage and poor material testing. It is recommended that; proper materials management will reduce time delay (delivery), cost of purchase, poor quality and thereby stopping wastes; building industries should have a prepared document for controlling building materials; an enlightening program should be conducted to educate people on the areas of material control; the three basic tool (planning material, scheduling and ABC analysis) should be included in controlling materials.