Control of material waste

Abstract

Not enough attention can ever be devoted to material use in order to minimize waste. Material waste significantly affects the profit margins of an individual contract and consequently reduces the efficiency of the whole construction industry. Whenever material use has been conceived, designed for, purchased, transported, stored, cut to size, joined and erected in place, a cumulative series of wastages from each operation has taken place with costly effects that someone has to account for. This could be the supplier who has to reduce his profit margins to remain competitive, or the client who may have to meet the higher bills arising out of other peoples inefficiencies. Some material waste is unavoidable but the industry can go a long way to reducing such waste to a minimum. On site materials can be completely lost and used for purposes other than those to which they were intended or used to excess of what is required by design. Materials on site should be accounted for in order to identify what magnitude is involved for each operation with a view to highlighting any such waste that may seem unreasonable.