Construction Material Procurement

0:00 in today's video we're going to be talking about material procurement in the construction industry if you're unsure of what material procurement is or the steps involved stay tuned until the end of this video because I'm going to explain this process from start to finish and show you an actual procurement log so let's go okay material procurement is essentially the process of selecting ordering and tracking deliveries of various materials ures and equipment on a construction project which might sound pretty straightforward however in commercial construction it's not as simple as running up to the local hardware store to get all the materials you need materials can be sourced in state out of state and even

0:46 internationally depending on the requirements of your project material lead times which is the time it takes from when you order the material to when it arrives on the job site can really hurt a Project's schedule if not managed correctly for example if you have completed your concrete footings and Foundations and you're ready for structural steel but the Steel's not yet been released into fabrication well your schedule is going to immediately be impacted in a negative way because your project is now at a standstill which can have huge monetary impacts this is the same scenario for any material on your construction project because construction needs to progress in a flow from installing one thing to the next the basic goal of material proc curement is to align the delivery date of the

1:32 material with your schedule so that material is arriving prior to the task starting in your schedule so where does this process start well it starts in the plans and specifications where all the material fixtures and equipment are identified for the project these documents outline exactly what you're supposed to be installing whether it's flooring paint lighting HVAC equipment and even specialty equipment the information however is scattered throughout the documents depending on the trade or subcontractor you won't find detailed information about paint on the mechanical drawings you won't find detailed information about Plumbing equipment on the architectural drawings the information is recapped based on the discipline whether it's architectural structural Plumbing mechanical Etc where

2:20 the information is listed within each discipline could change based on the architect or design team creating those documents as well so I'll return to an example of how we find this material later on in this video within the plans and specifications but let's first talk about the process of ordering material now each contractor or subcontractor is responsible for a particular aspect of Scope when it comes to a large commercial construction project now those contractors will read through the drawings and specifications which will tell them exactly what they need to order for material fixtures and equipment if they've already been contracted to complete the job they have likely completed a detailed estimate during the preconstruction phase which would summarize the types and quantities

3:06 of material needed I explain this as the takeoff process in my estimating video which is how a company would quantify materials needed for a project now the drawings and specifications on a commercial construction project will specify the requirements of the material fixtures and equipment the specifications will tell you the type of material approved manufacturers you can use colors and and much more which is exactly what the owner is looking to have installed you cannot just install anything similar in material the product actually has to match what's specified unless the owner approves of substitution so to ensure that the owner is getting what they want the architect also includes submitt requirements in the specifications submitt include

3:52 product data literature shop drawings color charts samples and much more essentially the contract responsible for ordering that specific material would need to submit the required submittal information to the architect or Engineers for review and approval this is a back check that the architect and Engineers require as part of the overall process to ensure that the contractor is going to install the correct material or equipment for the owner and submitt can also be rejected if the material does not meet the specified criteria so once all applicable submittals are reviewed viewed and approved the material can likely be released I say likely because the material sometimes requires field measurements which is another step prior

4:39 to release so before we jump into the procurement log let's look at some quick examples of where we'd find material and equipment for a construction project okay I've pulled up a typical architectural finish schedule and if I zoom in we'll see that there are different rooms that have different material requirements here I see cpt2 cpt4 VCT and pt2 which are all different flooring materials well I'd have to go elsewhere in the drawings to find out what these abbreviations mean so let's look up above okay here is CPT which is carpet

5:25 and then we see VCT which is vinyl composition tile and finally PT which is porcelain title so this tells us briefly what the material is but the way the architect has completed these drawings doesn't tell us what the manufacturer is the color or other necessary information that we would need to provide subid on in order to procure and release the material so we'd have to go to the specifications to find the remainder of this information okay moving back down we see that there are both cpt2 and cpt4 so I can assume that there are different types of carpets which may have different lead times sometimes architex will put all the information necessary right on this page but sometimes we have

6:11 to go digging for it like in this case we'll find this information further in the specifications so when I'm compiling a procurement log I will literally flip page by Page and just add about every piece or type of material and equipment that I come across on the drawings to ensure that everything's being tracked now as a general rule that I follow is if material has less than 2 weeks in lead time I typically don't track it I usually track items that are two weeks or greater so jumping to the next page let's take a look at Plumbing so if I zoom in here we see Plumbing equipment and fixtures I'd find most of the information on this schedules page when I zoom in even further we see that there are fixtures up above as well as a pump so on the material procurement log that

6:58 we'll see shortly we can itemize each of these or bul them all together depending on how comfortable we are with the plumbing contractor procuring these items and how closely we want to track each of these items and for just a final example we're going to flip to this mechanical equipment in schedules page so we would just do the same for all of this we can itemize the equipment onto our tracking log and kind of separate it by groups of equipment so I also want to note that each subcontractor is responsible for getting their own material to the the job site to meet the project schedule so this entire procurement log is really just a back check for the general contractor or construction manager to ensure that subcontractors are getting their submittals in and approved on time to

7:43 maintain the overall schedule so although material procurement is each subcontractor's responsibility for the material that they're installing the general contractor or construction manager track this information because at the end of the day the GC or cm are responsible for the overall success of the project which includes schedule which ties back to material lead times and release now subcontractors that have a lot of ordering to do a lot of long lead equipment should be managing their own procurement logs and as a project manager I typically ask for these on a monthly basis to see how they're tracking now I'll just actually take their information and feed it back into my own log as an overall back check so let's jump into our procur log now which

8:30 is Excel based but I've PDF it into images for Simplicity all right so I have a handful of basic columns that I fill out at the beginning of a project as well as information that I'd update as we progress throughout the project now some of these columns have formulas some of these columns are manually input information and I'll explain exactly what those are as we move through this example so to start us off I have a simp simple formula at the top of this Excel or this page which is just today's date which updates based on the day that we're actually viewing this file and influences some other information in this file then we have our columns and starting on the left we have subcontractor which is the contractor

9:16 responsible for ordering the material fixtures or equipment next we have the name or the item which is just a description of that material or equipment after that we have the date needed on site which is based on our schedule and when we actually need the material next we have submitt status and then we have this column If released today which I'll explain shortly then we have date material released which will manually input a date after we confirm that the material is actually released after that we have the column of lead times which we'll track in weeks next we have field measure which is just a yes or a no and we'll manually input this

10:02 column at the beginning after that we have date available which is a Formula column that takes into consideration the date the material is released plus the lead time and then finally we have this column on track which is just a yes or no and this is actually a formula that I'll explain shortly as well okay let's start with the blank template so when I'm first starting out on this procurement log I want to start by listing all the procurement items by flipping through those drawings and the associated contractors responsible for procuring those items in these first two columns so once I've completed adding everything that I needed to track it'll look something like this now this

10:47 template was set up for every CSI division but you'll see that I have some marked not applicable because that scope of work is not required as part of this project so I'll just add a filter and fil out these not applicable items so that we only see the necessary information next we'll add the lead time in weeks now during the scoping process which is during preconstruction where I would talk to contractors prior to awarding them the project I'll actually ask them to itemize all their material or equipment lead times in advance so that I have this information on the front end that is if it's over 2 weeks it's always good to communicate with contractors throughout the construction project as well because these lead times could change so once I have the lead

11:34 times added then I'll add a yes or a no to the field measurement requirement column now field measurements are important to know because contractors won't release materials based on an approved submitt if field measuring is required so I track this just to know who needs to be out on site to field measure and just as a back check to ensure that the timing of field measuring plus the lead time still works with the overall schedule in this procurement log next we'll fill in the most important column on this entire log which is the date needed on site so in order to do this we'll actually have to look at our schedule and see when different activities start on the job site now when those activities start you need the material on site for those

12:20 activities to start so we're going to go based on material and see uh the aligning scope activity on our schedule and that should give us these dates so I'll go through and fill all these out in advance then we'll start to track our submitt status and as the project progresses this column will get updated based on approved submitt which will trigger the release of material so finally I'll add the remainder of the columns which are either manually input information or calculations based off other information that we're going to input okay so let's get an understanding of how this spreadsheet works now and let's start with the if release today column meaning if the material is

13:05 released based on the date at the top which is today's date now this column is an equation that will take the lead time column in weeks multiply those weeks by seven days to give us a calendar duration and then add that to today's date so for the top item which is rebar it takes 4 weeks multiplied by 7 days and then it adds adds it to the 2225 date which gives us approximately a 3225 delivery date now this is just a gut check to understand if we released the material on today's date and took into account or considered the lead time this would give us actually when the material would show up again this column

13:52 is just a formula and is just a gut check we take this column that is showing us if material were to be released today and we can look at the other column of when the material is needed on site and if any of the dates for if it's released today are showing greater than when we need it on site we can immediately tell that there's an issue and I do this on every project just as a back check while we're going through the submittal process to see where we need to be with material release to meet the schedule the next column over is date materials released which which is a manually input column when the submitt is approved and we' confirmed with the contractor that the material was released we can input that date manually

14:40 or we could base it off of when the material was field measured and released then we have date available column now this is an equation that is set up from the start it takes the date the material our release column which we just manually entered or typed it multiplies it by the lead time to give us a date of when the material is to be expected on site and then finally the last column on track for date needed on site this is just another equation column that just highlights yes or no this formula checks the date available column against the date needed on site column if the date available is after the date needed on site it will highlight a red no if the

15:28 date a available is before the date needed on site it will highlight a green yes this is just an immediate visual indicator of is the material tracking per our schedule or not okay so let's jump into an example I'm going to input a bunch of information and see how this procurement log looks okay I've updated the submittal status on a handful of items and items that are approved I've added the date materials released as a manual input so for the top example I have two rebar material procurement examples here now in this first example the material was needed on 22525 based on some schedule in the

16:14 second example the material is needed on 3 to 25 based on some other imaginary schedule now the material has a four-wheel clead time on each item so you can see that if the material was needed on 22525 based on today's date we would not be getting the material on time based on the lead time plus the release date in the second example it's not needed until 3225 just a week later but the material is tracking to be on site according to that schedule so this is just a difference in one week and this is going to show you what material is tracking and what needs to be on site and this is going to start to show you that General gut check of if material will be there

17:01 to meet our project schedule so how does all this material procurement work in theory well all you really need to do is take the date that it's needed on site and subtract the lead time in weeks and you just work backwards from that date it's needed on site plus that lead time and it's going to tell you exactly when you need to have everything approved and released so I'm going to add two final columns to simplify this okay I have added An approved by date column which means the date these submitt need to be approved and the material can be released as well as a submit by date column which is the date that the submitt need to be submitted to the design team the approved by date

17:46 column Works backwards by taking the date needed on site then subtracting the overall lead time which is the lead time in weeks multiplied by 7 days so essentially we would need the submittals approved by this date to ensure the material is on site to meet the schedule now the design team needs time to review and approve submitt their allotted time should be clarified in the specifications but let's just say it takes the design team two weeks to review the submitt so the column submit by knocks off another two weeks and tells us when we need to have our submittal into the architect and engineer to meet our scheduled timelines and to get our material on site now keep

18:31 in mind that the submitt can be rejected so make sure that the information is correct before sending it through and the earlier we can submit on material the better and the less chance we have of any schedule impact so in its simplest form we're just taking durations and backchecking it against our overall schedule using Excel to help us uh we're working backwards from when we need the material on site according to our schedule then adding all the time in between from that approval point to get that original start date to submit on so this will create a helpful road map as to where you should have your priorities and focus uh when it comes to submitt and focus on material procurement to maintain the overall project schedule and on a side note I just

19:19 wrapped up a CPM scheduling video and I actually like to track the long lead times directly in the schedule and tie them to scope activities so that the logic in the CPM schedule is tied directly to task activities so that if material durations push we can see the impact of those actual start Task activities on the schedule all right if you learned something in this video let me know in the comment section below also if something didn't click or just didn't make sense just leave me a question it might help clarify some things for other people you never know I'll be working on getting this file and some other files available to you in the upcoming months I'll eventually drop a link in the description below when those are ready so as always be better build

20:06 better and bye for now a