Material Control System
Material Control System is the system that aims to maintain an uninterrupted production process by controlling the material cycle such as purchasing, storage, and usage.
Material control ensures that high-quality material is ready to produce at the required time with lowest capital investment. The minimum inventory level is kept to prevent any production interruption.
Material refers to the inputs which require to produce the finished product. They can be more than one item and it is hard to find a replacement in a short time. They include both direct and indirect raw material which requires in the production process.
Scope of Material Control System
- Material Purchasing: The purchasing department needs to ensure the supplier can support high quality material on-time delivery with a reasonable price.
- Receiving material & Inspection: All materials must be inspected before signing on GRN (Goods Received Noted) to ensure the quantity and quality.
- Storage: The warehouse manager needs to prepare a proper place to store the material to prevent any physical damage. The storage must be enough to store the inventory at minimum level.
- Issue to the production process: All inventory issues must keep records to maintain proper inventory listing otherwise we will not be able to keep track its quantity.
- Maintain Stock level: All relevant department such as sale, production, purchase, and warehouse must discuss and calculate the minimum stock to maintain. Stock level need to increase to reflect the production requirement.
Objectives of Material Control System
- Guarantee production: The main objective of material control to make sure that there is enough material for production in order to complete customers’ orders on time. The manufacturing can not bear the risk of production stop as the fixed cost is very high.
- High-Quality Material: Low-quality material will have a direct impact on our product which is the customers’ key concern. Moreover, low-quality material will result in high wastage and they may not pass the quality check.
- Wastage Control: wastage is a cost that does not provide any value to the customers. Minimize it will have to increase our profit without scarifying the product’s quality.
- Capital Management: Store low stock will face production pause due to low inventory levels. However, store too much material, we need to spend a huge amount of capital which can be invested somewhere else.
Advantages of Material Control System
- An effective material control system will help the company to maintain enough raw material for production and it prevents the risk of delaying manufacturing due to lack of material.
- It also helps to maintain the material’s quality at a certain level
- Keeping too much inventory will incur a huge cost for the company, however, this method will help to maintain enough material for production but not too much.
- It prevents the company from investing a huge amount of capital in the raw material.
- Proper control will help to reduce the risk of fraud and thief.
