College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

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Browsing College of Agriculture & Natural Resources by Subject "Construction"

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    Supply Chain Management Practices Of Road Construction Firms In Ghana
    (2015-02-20) Kyei, Philip Kwasi
    The road construction sector plays a key role in the developmental agenda of a nation by providing transportation services to the various sectors of the economy. However, the road sector has encountered series of problems in its quest to deliver road infrastructure. Road construction projects have been unduly delayed as a result of poor management of the supply chain system in the sector. The downstream has failed on many occasions to provide the requisite information to the upstream while at the same time the upstream has failed to deliver supplies to construction sites for timely completion of road projects. In this light, this study intends to explore the supply chain management in road construction in in order to enhance project delivery. The study adopted the quantitative approach in its conduct by using survey questionnaire as the main data collection instrument. Thisyielded a response rate of 74%. The SPSS was used to package the raw data which paved the way for statistical analysis using tools such as the chi square; descriptive statistics comprising of mean, standard deviation and indexes. The findings of the study include approaches for collaboration in the SCM of the road construction sector which consist ofstrategic purchasing; supply management; long-term relationships; supplier selection; and supplier involvement. Similarly, the study uncovered the benefits of SCM in road construction comprising of information shar¬ing for continuous flow of communication among partners; risk sharing through win-win relationship among parties; resource allocation through corporation; long-term relationship for investing in equipment and efforts to preserve the strategy; better service reliability; lower operation costs; and customer satisfaction and improve overall competitive advantage. Furthermore findings were made in functional areas for SCM implementation in road construction involvingclient focus; continuous improvement; waste minimization; reliable workflow; equipment acquisition; and focus on supply chain value analysis and target costing. The key success factors for SCM in road construction were top management support; reliability of supply; integrated information systems to reduce cost and eliminate waste; manpower development; and free flow of information. The study also explored managerial responsibilities of SCM in road construction consisting of planning and control of key operations to move the organization in the right direction; developing work structure indicating how the firm performs its tasks and activities; preparing organizational structure of the individual firm; developing the organizational structure for the supply chain indicating the use of cross-functional teams; and developing product flow facility structure demonstrating the network structure for sourcing. This study has the potential of igniting further studies to deepen the understanding of SCM in road construction.It will also aid practitioners in road construction to deliver projects within the framework of value for money.