Assessment of materials management in the Kenyan manufacturing firms-Exploratory survey of manufacturing firms based in Nairobi

Abstract

Materials play a big part in the manufacturing firms as it account for about 56% of the annual turnover. This research analyzed the attention and recognition the Kenyan manufacturing firms are giving to the materials management. The motivation of the study was based on the fact that long-term success and survival of any Organization depends entirely on how well organization are managing their costs. The study was a survey of medium and large manufacturing firms based in Nairobi. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire consisting mainly of close-ended questions and some few open-ended questions. The main objective of this study was to determine the kind of attention and recognition the Kenyan manufacturing firms are giving to material management and also shed light on the benefits of adopting good materials management practices. A sample size of 55 firms was collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The research revealed that not much attention was given to materials management as only about 23 percent of the firms had in charge of materials reporting directly to the chief executive officer. At least quite a number of large firms had well established departments to manage materials compared to medium firms. The conclusion drawn from the research was that Kenyan firms were not practicing professionalism in materials management and that materials management was more suited for large firms. Recommendations made were that, owing to the large sum of money companies were spending on materials and material related activities, a lot of emphasis and attention needed to be given to materials management. Materials management needs to be recognized as a top management function.