Subject Overview

Materials and Inventory Management examines the planning, sourcing, movement, storage, control and improvement of materials across production systems. The subject integrates foundational methods with managerial decision-making, analytics, digital technologies, governance, sustainability and contemporary supply-chain practices.

Learning Goal

Students will be able to plan material requirements, classify and control inventories, evaluate suppliers, manage stores and material flows, determine replenishment policies, use inventory analytics and digital systems, and make ethical, cost-effective and resilient materials-management decisions.

Syllabus

1. Foundations of Materials and Inventory Management

Learning Objective: Explain the scope, terminology, objectives and functions of materials management; distinguish materials, components, work-in-process, finished goods, consumables and MRO inventory; and relate the materials cycle to production, finance and supply-chain performance.

Category: foundation

2. Materials Strategy, Organization and Policies

Learning Objective: Design materials-management responsibilities, policies, service-level objectives, make-or-buy approaches and cross-functional coordination among purchasing, production, quality, logistics, finance and sales.

Category: core

3. Materials Planning and Demand Management

Learning Objective: Apply demand forecasting, bill of materials, product structures, lead times, master production schedules, material requirements planning, capacity considerations and closed-loop planning to determine what, how much and when to order.

Category: core

4. Inventory Costs, Valuation and Performance Measures

Learning Objective: Analyze ordering, setup, carrying, shortage, obsolescence and total landed costs; apply FIFO, weighted-average and standard-cost concepts; and interpret turnover, days of inventory, fill rate, stockout rate and working-capital measures.

Category: core

5. Inventory Classification and Selective Control

Learning Objective: Use ABC, VED, HML, FSN, SDE and XYZ analyses, including combined classification matrices, to establish differentiated controls, review frequency, service levels and managerial priorities.

Category: application

6. Deterministic Inventory Models

Learning Objective: Apply economic order quantity, economic production quantity, quantity-discount, reorder-point, min-max, two-bin and periodic-review models while evaluating their assumptions, limitations and operational use.

Category: core

7. Inventory Under Uncertainty

Learning Objective: Determine safety stock, service levels and reorder points under variable demand and lead time; interpret probability-based stockout risk and apply continuous- and periodic-review policies to uncertain environments.

Category: advanced

8. Purchasing, Sourcing and Supplier Management

Learning Objective: Execute the procurement cycle from specification and enquiry through negotiation, contracting, expediting and payment; evaluate suppliers using cost, quality, delivery, capacity, risk, ethics and sustainability criteria; and manage supplier relationships.

Category: application

9. Stores, Warehousing and Materials Handling

Learning Objective: Plan receiving, inspection, identification, storage, preservation, picking, issue and dispatch processes; select layouts, locations, handling equipment and packaging; and apply safety, security and loss-prevention practices.

Category: application

10. Inventory Records, Verification and Control

Learning Objective: Maintain item masters, coding systems, stock ledgers and perpetual records; conduct cycle counting and physical verification; reconcile discrepancies; control scrap, surplus, returns, slow-moving and obsolete stock; and strengthen internal controls.

Category: core

11. Lean Materials Flow and Production Integration

Learning Objective: Apply Just-in-Time, Kanban, pull systems, supermarkets, lot-size reduction, line-side supply, vendor-managed inventory and waste elimination while balancing lean efficiency with disruption resilience.

Category: application

12. Materials Analytics and Managerial Decision-Making

Learning Objective: Build and interpret dashboards, conduct variance, ageing, consumption and root-cause analyses, optimize inventory-service trade-offs, perform scenario and sensitivity analysis, and use evidence to support replenishment and working-capital decisions.

Category: advanced

13. Digital Materials Management and Emerging Technologies

Learning Objective: Explain how ERP, MRP II, warehouse-management systems, e-procurement, barcodes, RFID, IoT and digital twins improve visibility and control; assess AI-enabled forecasting, anomaly detection and replenishment while addressing data quality, cybersecurity and human oversight.

Category: contemporary

14. Governance, Sustainability, Risk and Future Practice

Learning Objective: Establish policies, authorization controls, audits and regulatory compliance; address fraud, conflicts of interest, responsible sourcing and circular material flows; and develop resilient strategies for disruption, localization, traceability, automation and evolving industry requirements.

Category: strategic