Integrated Material managment

A manager has command over 4 resources men,machines money and materials which are known as 4m’s.

These are the inputs of any business activity. A manager is expected to give required output from a given quantum of inputs. Regarding inputs, he has hardly any control over men, machines and money. The costs of these inputs will continue to rise in the inflationary conditions. The only field
in which considerable economics are possible in India is management of materials. Materials management was not a known subject till the mid of century. Today it is regarded as one of the most important area of management.

Various definitions of materials management are given by experts, some of them are as follows:

1. “Il covers the whole range of functions involved in converting raw materials & ancillary supplies into finished products.”
   -R.R.Gokarn.
2. “Material management is essentially an activity of an enterprise for the procurement & use of material distinctly separated from the process of procurement & the use of
   human skills & labour for the ultimate deployment to attain
   some predetermined objectives.”

• A.K. Dutta

1. “Material Management is the function responsible for the coordination of planning, sourcing, purchasing, moving, storing & controlling material in an optimum manner,
   so as to provide pre-decided services to the customer at a minimum cost.”
   -P. Gopal Krishnan

All the above definitions as we see are the ones inspired by or are having the entire functions of Management.

Management is a very vast field. Material management is just a part of it. This can be very well explained with the help of following definition of management.

1″Management is the process of utilising and exploiting opportunities available, through the resources for maximization of Profit by achieving a pre-determined objectives So we can define “

2.Material Management as a process of making available the material at a competitive rates not necessarily lowest rate & in such a manner so as to maintain the level (Production), which helps the company in providing finished or end product to the customer/consumer at competitive price whereby increasing sales, results in higher profitability.”

3.Functions of Material Management Area of material management can also be described as the functions of Material Management. Following are the functional areas of material management.