Material Denition:

The most common & highly interchangeable word for the physical entity which contributes to manufacturing of the nished or seminished product from the manufacturing facility is call material, also teamed as raw material.

Material Cost:
The cost associate to the material is called material cost.

Concern for Material Cost:

As the material cost contributes to the major part of the total cost of a product proper accounting, control over purchase, consumption & inventory is necessary for smooth management of business. At the time of account the cost of the product material, costs are subdivided into two major types of Material Cost: 1) Direct Material Cost 2) Indirect Material Cost

Direct Material Cost:

The materials which can be easily identied and attributed to the individual units being manufactured are known as direct materials. These materials also form part of nished product. All costs which are incurred to obtain direct material are known as direct materials costs.

Indirect Material Cost:

Indirect materials, are those materials which are of small value such as nuts, pins, screws, etc. and do not physically form part of the nished product. Costs associated with indirect materials are known as indirect material cost. As the material cost contributes to the major part of the total cost of a product it is essential to control & optimize the material cost by taking in account following measures. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Inventory Control. Purchase Control and Purchase Procedure. Stores Control. Issue of Materials. Accounting and Control of Normal and Abnormal Wastage.

Inventory Control
What is Inventory ? Inventory includes stock of raw materials, work in progress and nished work. As per The lnstitute of Chartere Accountants of lndia dene inventory as "tangible property held (i) for sale in the ordinary course of business or (ii) in the process of production for sale or (iii) for consumption in the production of goods or service for sale, including maintenance supplies and consumables other than machinery spares."

Signicance of Inventory Control:

As materials constitute a signicant part of the total production cost of a product and since this cost is controllable to some extent, proper planning and controlling of inventories are of great importance. Inventory control is a planned method of determining what to indent, so that purchasing and storing cost are minimum without affecting production or sale. Without proper control, inventories have a tendency to grow beyond economic limits. Funds are tied up unnecessarily in surplus stores and stocks, productive operations are stalled, and nances of the plant are a wastage as operatives are liable to become careless with irrational supply of materials.

Objectives of Material Control

The main objectives of material control are listed below, 1) No Under-stocking Under-stocking leads to materials running out of stock at some time or the other. Shortage of materials may arise at the time when they are urgently needed and production then be delayed. Delay or stoppage in the production due to non availability of raw materials is very costly as it may result in loss of prot. Material control system ensures that there is no shortage of raw materials. 2) No Overstocking Investment in the material must be kept as low as possible, considering the production requirements and nancial resources of the business. Overstocking raw materials unnecessarily locks up capital and causes high storage cost, thus adversely affecting prots. 3) Minimum Wastage Proper storage conditions must be provided to different types of raw materials. Losses of material may occur due to deterioration, obsolescence, theft, evaporation. Etc. All efforts should be made to keep the losses at the minimum. 4) Economy in purchasing The purchasing of material is highly specialized function. By purchasing raw material at the most favorable price, the efcient purchaser is able to make a valuable contribution to the success of a business. 5) Proper quality of materials The quality of raw materials should be maintained as per dened specication. It is no use purchasing materials of inferior quality or superior quality. 6) Information about materials Not only that materials should be available as and when required, but also there should be a system to give complete and up to date information about availability of materials. Sometimes inadequate information about availability of materials may cause new purchases be made of materials already in stocks. 7) Material reports to management The material control system should be so designed so as to serve the purpose of accurate and up to date reports to management about purchase, consumption and stocks of materials.

Principles of Inventory Control:

Ideally, the material control must ensure that following requirements are fully met. 1) There should be proper cooperation and coordination between various departments dealing in materials ex purchase dept, store dept, receiving and inspecting department, accounting department etc. 2) There should be a central purchasing department under the control of a competent and expert purchase manager. 3) There should be a proper classication and codication of material 4) Material requirement should be properly planned 5) The perpetual inventory system should be operated so that up to date information is available about the quantity of material in stock. 6) Adequate records should be introduced during production and quantity manufactured for stock 7) The storage of all materials should be well planned subject to adequate safeguard and supervision. 8) The various stock levels like maximum, minimum etc should be xed for each item of material 9) Purchases of materials should be controlled through budgets 10) An efcient system of internal audit and external check should be operated so that all transactions involving materials are checked by reliable and independent person. 11) There should be regular reporting to management regarding purchases issues and stock of materials. Special reports should be prepared for obsolete items, spoilage, return to suppliers etc.

Methods of Inventory Control:

The common techniques of inventory control: 1) The ABC plan. 2) Fixation of various levels.

The ABC plan (Always Better Control)

With the numerous parts and materials that enter into each and every industrial product, inventory control lends itself, rst and foremost, to a problem of analysis. Such analytical approach is popularly known as ABC analysis (Always Better Control), which is believed to have originated in the General Electric Company of America. The ABC plan is based upon segregation of materials for selection control. It measures the money value, i.e., cost signicance of each material item in relation to total cost and inventory value. The logic behind this kind of,analysis is that the management should study each item. stock in terms of its usage, lead time, technical or other problems and its relative money value in the total investment in inventories. Critical, i.e. high value items deserve very close attention, and low value items need to be devoted minimum expense and effort in the task of controlling inventories. Under ABC analysis, the different items of stock may be ranked in order of their average inventory investment or on the basis of their annual rupee usage. The important steps involved in segregating materials or inventory control are: (i) Find out future use of each item of stock in terms of physical quantities for the review forecast period. (ii)Determine the price per unit for each item. (iii)Determine the total project cost of each item by multiplying its expected units to be used by the price per unit of such item. (iv)Beginning with the item with the highest total cost, arrange different items in order of their total computed under step above. (v)Express the units of each item as a percentage of total costs of all items. (vi)Compute the total cost of each item as a percentage of total costs of all items. Items may be classied into only three categories and labelled as A, B, and C respectively depending upon whether they are high value items, middle value items or low value items. If need be, percentage of different items may be plotted on chart.

Fixation of Various Levels

A certain stock level are xed up for every item of stores so that stock and purchases can be efciently controlled. These are as follows: a)Maximum Level: This represents the minimum quantity above which stocks should not be held at any time. b)Minimum Level :This represents the minimum quantity of stock that should be held at all times. c)Danger Level: Normal issues of stock are usually stopped at this level and made only under specic instructions. d)Ordering level: It is the level at which indents should be placed for replenishing stocks. e)Ordering Quantity: It is the quantity that is ordered.

(a) Maximum Level:

Maximum stock level is the level above which stock should not be allowed to rise. It is the maximum quantity of a given material that may be held in the store. The following factors are considered while xing this levels. It is normally a matter of company policy. The various factors that should be taken into consideration are: i) Rate of consumption of material. ii) Storage space available. iii) Amount of capital needed and available. iv) Risk of obsolescence and deterioration. v) Cost of storage. vi) Insurance cost. vii) Bulk purchase of season material.

viii) Re-order quantity for the material. ix) Price advantage arising out of bulk purchases should be availed. Maximum stock level can be calculated as follows: Maximum stock level = Re-order level + Re-ordering quantity - (Minimum consumption x Minimum reorder period).

(b) Minimum Level:

Minimum level is that stock level below which stock should not be allowed to fall. In case any item of material falls below this level then there is danger of stoppage in production. In setting these levels following factors must be taken into account. (I) Consumption per annum. (II) The lead time. (III) The production requirement. (IV) The minimum quantity that could be advantageously purchased. (V) If an item is made to order then no minimum level is necessary.

Minimum level = Re-order level- (Normal consumption x Normal re- order period).

(c) Danger or Safety Level:

This is a level at which normal issue of raw materials is stopped and urgent action is taken for purchase of raw materials so that production is not stopped due to non availability of materials. Safety stock level = Ordering level - (Average rate of consumption x Re-order period) Or Safety stock level = (maximum rate of consumption - Average rate of consumption) x Lead time.

(d) Ordering Level:

The annual consumption of an item and the time lag between ordering and receiving can be collected from past records. Based on these facts and policies, the ordering level and ordering quantity can be calculated, as follows:

Ordering level= Minimum level+ Consumption during time lag period Or Ordering level= Maximum consumption x Maximum re-ordering period. The ordering level should be xed so that when an indent is placed at the ordering level, the stock reaches the minimum level when the replenishment is received. The ordering level is calculated from the following factors: (i) The expected usage. (ii) The minimum level. (iii) The lead time. The order point is calculated keeping in mind the worst conditions so that minimum stock is always maintained.

(e) Economic Ordering Quantity:

The basic problem of inventory control are two viz., What quantity of an item should be ordered at a time and when should an order be placed. While deciding economic ordering quantity, the efforts are directed to ascertain the ideal order size. While deciding the ideal order size, factors such as inventory carrying charges and the ordering cost associated with the placement of purchase orders are to be considered; the total of both has to be minimized. The inventory carrying charges include interest on the capital invested in the stores of materials, rent for the storage space, salaries and wages of store- keeping department, any loss due to pilferage and deterioration, stores insurance charges, stationery, etc. used by the stores, taxes on inventories, etc. Ordering costs may include rent for space used by the purchasing department, the salaries and wages of ofcers and staff in the purchasing department, the depreciation on the equipment and furniture used by the department, postage, telegraph charges and telephone bills, the stationery and other consumables required by the purchasing department, any traveling expenditure incurred, and the costs of inspection etc., on receipt of material. The optimum ordering quantity, i.e., the quantity for which the cost of holding plus the costs of purchasing is the minimum is known as Economic ordering Quantity and is calculated by following formula:

E.O.Q =

(2U*P) / S
= Annual consumption (units) during the year. = Cost of placing an order. = Annual cost of storage of one unit.

Where:

E.O.Q. = Economic Ordering Quantity.

U P S

While deciding the question as to what should be the economic ordering quantity one has to ensure that the cost incurred should be minimum. An ideal order size, therefore, is at the quantity where the costs is minimum i.e., cost of holding the stock and ordering cost intersect each other.

Stock Valuation
Stock valuation is the ascertainment of quantities of stocks e.g. raw materials consumable stores, semi-nished components, work-in-process, nished goods, etc. and valuing them on an equitable basis.

Methods of measuring the quantity:

(i)Physical Balance Method. (ii)Book Balance Method. (iii)Derived or Calculated Balances.

Pricing of Material Issues:

They may be classied as follows: 1.Cost Price Methods a. Specied Price. b. First-in First-out (FIFO). c. Last-in First-out (LIFO). d. Base Stock. 2. Average Price Method a. Simple Average. b. Weighted Average. c. Periodic Simple Average. d. Moving Simple Average. e. Moving Weighted Average. 3. Notional Price Methods a. Standard Price. i. Current Standard. ii. Basic Standard. b. Inated Price. c. Market Price. i.Replacement Price. ii. Realizable Price.

First-in First-out (FIFO) Method

The principle is that materials received rst are issued rst. Advantages: (i) It is a good inventory management system since the oldest units are used rst and inventory consists of the latest stock. (ii) It is logical, easy to understand and operate. (iii) Valuation of inventory and cost of nished goods is consistent and realistic. Disadvantages: (i) The cost of production is not linked to the current prices. (ii) If prices are rising, production cost is understated. But if stock turnover rate is high, the inventory will reect current prices. The effect of current market prices is not revealed in issues when prices are rising. (iii) It does not present the true picture when many lots are purchased at different prices. The calculation become complicated. (iv) The pricing of material returns is difcult. (v) Usually more than one price has to be adopted for a particular issue. (vi) Cost comparisons between low batches of production becomes difcult when issues are priced differently.

Last-in First-out (LIFO) Method

The principle adopted is that the materials used in production is the latest. The inventory is priced at the oldest costs. As the method applies the current cost of materials to the cost of units, it is also known as the replacement cost method. It is the most signicant method in matching cost with revenue in the income determination procedure.

Advantages:
(i) Simple and useful when transaction are few. (ii) A systematic method, matches current costs with current revenues in a better way (iii) Reveals real income in times of rising prices.

(iv)It minimizes unrealized inventory gains and losses and tends to stabilize reported operation prots especially when the industry is prone to sharp price uctuations.

Disadvantages:
(i) When rates of material receipts are highly uctuating, the method becomes complicated. (ii) Cost of different batches vary greatly, making inter-rm and intra-rm comparison difcult. (iii) The stocks require to be adjusted during falling prices. (iv) Unless purchases and sales occur in equal quantities the currentcosts, cannot be easily matched with current revenue. (v)The company can plan the purchases to cause high or low costs thus changing reported income at will.

Simple Average Method

Simple average is the average of prices ignoring the quantities involved. lt can be used when the prices are normally stable and the stocks purchased are in equal quantities or the stock value is small. It is calculated by dividing the total rates of materials by the number of rates of prices. A new average is worked out after every receipt.

Weighted Average Method

The total quantities and total costs are taken into account while calculating the average price. lt is calculated after every purchase by adding the quantity received to the stock in hand and the cost of this purchase to the cost of stock in hand. The total cost is divided by the totalquahtity to arrive at the value. This method avoids price uctuations and reduces the numbers of calculations and gives an acceptable gure to stock.

Periodic Weighted Average Method

The average price is calculated periodically and not every time the material is received. It is calculated by dividing the total value of materials purchased during a period by the total quantity purchased.

Moving Simple Average Method

In this method, periodic simple average prices are further averaged. By dividing periodic average prices by the number of periods taken, the moving average is calculated. The period chosen should cover the period in which the material is issued. The value of closing stock may be under valued or over valued. When prices are rising, the issue price worked out is lower than the periodic average prices for the period concerned and vice versa.

Waste
Waste comprises of invisible loss, visible loss that cannot be collected and also the unsaleable portion of the collected loss. Waste is excluded from output quantity. Examples of waste are smoke, dust, gases, slag, etc. In certain cases, the waste involves further costs of disposing it, e.g. cost incurred for disposal of efuent, obnoxious gases, nuclear waste etc.

Scrap
Scrap represents the unusable loss which can be sold. It is a residue which is measurable and has a minor value. It may result from the processing of materials, obsolete stock or defective parts. The sale value is credited to the concerned department which produced it. If the value is negligible, it is credited to the costing prot and loss account.

Spoilage
Spoilage are those materials or components which are so damaged in the manufacturing process that they cannot be repaired or reconditioned. Some spoilage may be sold as seconds. If they are badly spoiled they can be sold as waste or scrap. Spoiled units do not attain the quality required and it is not economic to correct them.Spoilage occurs due to some defect in operations or materials. Sometimes the entire production in a batch may have to be rejected or a part of it may be rejected.

Vendor Rating or Vendor Rating Program:

Vendor rating is the result of a formal vendor evaluation system. Vendors or suppliers are given standing, status, or title according to their attainment of some level of performance, such as delivery, lead time, quality, price, or some combination of variables. The motivation for the establishment of such a rating system is part of the effort of manufacturers and service rms to ensure that the desired characteristics of a purchased product or service is built in and not determined later by some after-the-fact indicator. The vendor rating may take the form of a hierarchical ranking from poor to excellent and whatever rankings the rm chooses to insert in between the two. For some rms, the vendor rating may come in the form of some sort of award system or as some variation of certication. Much of this attention to vender rating is a direct result of the widespread implementation of the just-in-time concept in the United States and its focus on the critical role of the buyer-supplier relationship. It could be numeric rating or a Likert-scale ranking. The individual ratings can then be weighted according to importance, and pooled to arrive at an overall vendor rating. The process can be somewhat complex in that many factors can be complementary or conicting. The process is further complicated by fact that some factors are quantitatively measured and others subjectively.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

Vendor performance is usually evaluated in the areas of pricing, quality, delivery, and service. Each area has a number of factors that some rms deem critical to successful vendor performance. Pricing factors include the following: Competitive pricing. The prices paid should be comparable to those of vendors providing similar product and services. Quote requests should compare favorably to other vendors. Price stability. Prices should be reasonably stable over time. Price accuracy. There should be a low number of variances from purchase-order prices on invoiced received. Advance notice of price changes. The vendor should provide adequate advance notice of price changes. Sensitive to costs. The vendor should demonstrate respect for the customer rm's bottom line and show an understanding of its needs. Possible cost savings could be suggested. The vendor should also exhibit knowledge of the market and share this insight with the buying rm. Billing. Are vendor invoices are accurate? The average length of time to receive credit memos should be reasonable. Estimates should not vary signicantly from the nal invoice. Effective vendor bills are timely and easy to read and understand.

Quality factors include: Compliance with purchase order. The vendor should comply with terms and conditions as stated in the purchase order. Does the vendor show an understanding of the customer rm's expectations? Conformity to specications. The product or service must conform to the specications identied in the request for proposal and purchase order. Does the product perform as expected? Reliability. Is the rate of product failure within reasonable limits? Reliability of repairs. Is all repair and rework acceptable?

Durability. Is the time until replacement is necessary reasonable? Support. Is quality support available from the vendor? Immediate response to and resolution of the problem is desirable. Warranty. The length and provisions of warranty protection offered should be reasonable. Are warranty problems resolved in a timely manner? State-of-the-art product/service. Does the vendor offer products and services that are consistent with the industry state-of-the-art? The vendor should consistently refresh product life by adding enhancements. It should also work with the buying rm in new product development.

Delivery factors include the following: Time. Does the vendor deliver products and services on time; is the actual receipt date on or close to the promised date? Does the promised date correspond to the vendor's published lead times? Also, are requests for information, proposals, and quotes swiftly answered? Quantity. Does the vendor deliver the correct items or services in the contracted quantity? Lead time. Is the average time for delivery comparable to that of other vendors for similar products and services? Packaging. Packaging should be sturdy, suitable, properly marked, and undamaged. Pallets should be the proper size with no overhang. Documentation. Does the vendor furnish proper documents (packing slips, invoices, technical manual, etc.) with correct material codes and proper purchase order numbers? Emergency delivery. Does the vendor demonstrate extra effort to meet requirements when an emergency delivery is requested?

Finally, these are service factors to consider: Good vendor representatives have sincere desire to serve. Vendor reps display courteous and professional approach, and handle complaints effectively. The vendor should also provide up-to-date catalogs, price information, and technical information. Does the vendor act as the buying rm's advocate within the supplying rm? Inside sales. Inside sales should display knowledge of buying rms needs. It should also be helpful with customer inquiries involving order conrmation, shipping schedules, shipping discrepancies, and invoice errors. Technical support. Does the vendor provide technical support for maintenance, repair, and installation situations? Does it provide technical instructions, documentation, general information? Are support personnel courteous, professional, and knowledgeable? The vendor should provide training on the effective use of its products or services. Emergency support. Does the vendor provide emergency support for repair or replacement of a failed product. Problem resolution. The vendor should respond in a timely manner to resolve problems. An excellent vendor provides follow-up on status of problem correction.

Just in Time
Just in Time, or JIT is a set of techniques to improve the return on investment of a business by reducing in-process inventory, and its associated costs. The process is driven by a series of signals, or Kanban that tell production processes to make the next part. Kanban are usually simple visual signals such as the presence or absence of a part on a shelf. JIT causes dramatic improvements in a manufacturing organization's return on investment, quality, and efficiency. The technique was rst adopted and publicized by Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan as part of its Toyota Production System (TPS). Japanese corporations cannot afford large amounts of land to warehouse nished products and parts. Before the 1950s this was thought to be a disadvantage because it reduced the economic lot size. An economic lot size is the number of identical products that should be produced, given the cost of changing the production process over to another product. The undesirable result would be a poor return on investment for a factory. The chief engineer at Toyota in the 1950s examined accounting assumptions, and realized that another method was possible. The factory could be made more exible, reducing the overhead costs of retooling, and therefore reducing the economic lot size to the available warehouse space. Over a period of several years, Toyota engineers redesigned car models for commonality of tooling for such production processes as paint-spraying and welding. Toyota was one of the rst to apply exible robotic systems for these tasks. Some of the changes were as simple as standardizing the hole sizes used to hang parts on hooks. The number and types of fasteners were reduced in order to standardize assembly steps and tools. In some cases identical subassemblies could be used in several models. Toyota engineers then determined that the remaining critical retooling operation was the time First! o change the t stamping dies used for body parts. Traditionally, these were adjusted by hand, with crowbars and wrenches. It sometimes took as long as several days to install a large (multi-ton) die set and achieve acceptable quality. Further, these were usually installed one at a time by a team of experts, so that the line would be down for several weeks. Toyota implemented a program called "The Single Minute Exchange of Die," SMED. With very simple xtures, measurements were substituted for adjustments. Almost immediately, die change times fell to about a half hour. At the same time, quality of the stampings became controlled by a written recipe, reducing the skill required for the change. Analysis showed that the remaining time was used to search for hand tools, and move dies. Procedural changes (moving the new die in place with the line in operation) and dedicated tool-racks reduced die change times to as little as 40 seconds. Dies were changed in a ripple through the factory, as a new product began owing. After SMED, economic lot sizes fell to as little as one vehicle in some Toyota plants. Carrying the process into parts-storage made it possible to store as little as one part in each assembly station. When a part disappeared, that was used as a sign to produce or order a new part. Effects Some surprising things occurred. A huge amount of cash appeared, apparently from nowhere, as in-process inventory was built out and sold. This by itself generated tremendous enthusiasm in upper management. Another surprising effect was that the response time of the factory fell to about a day. This improved customer satisfaction by providing vehicles usually within a day or two of the minimum economic shipping delay. Also, many vehicles began to be built to order, completely eliminating any risk that they would not be sold. This dramatically improved the company's return on equity by eliminating a major source of risk. Since assemblers no longer had a choice of which part to use, every part had to t perfectly. The result was a severe quality assurance crisis, and a dramatic improvement in product quality. Eventually Toyota redesigned every part of its vehicles to eliminate or widen tolerances, while simultaneously implementing careful statistical controls. (See Total Quality Management). Toyota had to test and train suppliers of parts in order to assure quality and delivery. In some cases, they eliminated multiple suppliers. When a process problem or bad parts surfaced on the production line, the entire production line had to be slowed, or even stopped. No inventory meant that a line could not operate from in-process inventory while a production problem was xed. Many people in Toyota condently predicted that the initiative would be abandoned for this reason. In the rst week, line stops occurred almost hourly. However, by the end of a month, the rate had fallen to a few line stops each day. In six months, line stops had so little economic effect that Toyota had an overhead pullline, similar to a bus bell-pull, that permitted any worker on the production line to order a line stop for a process or quality problem. Even with this, line stops fell to a few per week.

The result was a factory that became the envy of the industrialized world, and which has since been widely emulated.

Kaizen
Kaizen (pronounced ki-zen) is a Japanese word constructed from two ideographs, the rst of which represents change and the second goodness or virtue. Kaizen is commonly used to indicate the long-term betterment of something or someone (continuous improvement) as in the phrase Seikatsu o kaizen suru which means to better ones life. The term Kaizen is used in two ways. The rst use is consistent with the phrase continuous improvement. The second use is as the label for a group of methods that improve work processes.

Kaizen as Continuous Improvement

In its rst use, Kaizen means the pursuit of perfection in all one does. In this sense, Kaizen represents the element of continuous improvement that is a fundamental part of the Quality Model. In a business context, it includes all activities, personal and teamed, that leverage learning to make processes better at satisfying customer requirements. As the principle of continuous improvement, Kaizen has its origins in W. Edwards Demings 14 points. Point 5 states, Improve constantly and forever" the system of production and service.

Kanban Method
The Kanban Method denes my approach to incremental, evolutionary change for technology development/ operations organizations. It uses a work-in-progress limited pull system as the core mechanism to expose system operation (or process) problems and stimulate collaboration to improve the system. One example of such a pull system, is a kanban system, and it is after this popular form of WIP limited pull system that the method is named. 1. Visualize the workow 2. Limit WIP 3. Manage Flow 4. Make Process Policies Explicit 5. Improve Collaboratively (using models & the scientic method) Kanban is directly associated with Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery. However, Kanban is not another name for just-in-time delivery. It is a part of a larger JIT system. There is more to managing a JIT system than just Kanban and there is more to Kanban than just inventory management. For example, Kanban also involves industrial re-engineering. This means that production areas might be changed from locating machines by function, to creating "cells" of equipment and employees. The cells allow related products to be manufactured in a continuous ow. Kanban involves employees as team members who are responsible for specic work activities. Teams and individuals are encouraged participate in continuously improving the Kanban processes and the overall production process.