Evaluation of Construction Materials Cost Reduction Measures in Building Industry in Imo State, Nigeria

Cost reduction measure on construction materials is very critical in the effectiveness of any construction material management. Negligence on this frustrates the integrated effort deployed in cost control of any building project. As the study aims at assessing the impact of some building material cost reduction strategies with regard to their sourcing, applications and designs for affordable houses, field survey research design method and activity sampling involving some of the major building materials were adopted. Data were analyzed using some non parametric tools like likert scale and chi-square to rank the level of effectiveness of the various materials’ cost reduction measures in the industry. It was also used to determine the impact level of the material management on the overall cost of the materials used in the construction of public building in Owerri. Spearman rank correlation coefficient was also used to examine the strength of relationship between the two major sources of the information. Findings in the study reveal that local sourcing of materials is the most significant method of material management in cost reduction. Other methods in their order of significance for cost reduction are quality assurance, economic design and specification, and on-site production of materials. The various percentage cost effects however are found to be significantly dependent on the methods of material management adopted for the materials’ cost reduction in the study. It is therefore recommended that an effective legislative back-up be instituted with a very strong awareness on the need for robust development of local construction material resources, as well as advocate for more practical contact hours on the stressed areas in the appropriate curriculum of the building profession in all the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Finally, appropriate checklist/indices for check-mating quality assurance on professional personnel and materials schedules; as well as enforcement of ‘buildability’ and maintainability analyses of building projects should be encouraged in the study area.