Materials, Management and Firm's Profitability

Abstract

This study examines the impact of materials management on the profitability of Nigeria brewing firms. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether there is effective and efficient materials management in Nigeria brewing firms and the extent to which it has contributed to their profitability. The population of this study is 4648 being the total staff strength of Nigeria Breweries and Guiness Nigeria PLCs, and a sample size of 368 was selected. Materials inventory, Materials procurement, materials storage and interdepartmental collaboration were adopted as sub variables of materials management while profit before tax, return on equity, earnings per share, tax paid and dividend paid was used as profit indicators to ascertain the profitability of organizations under study. Questionnaire and oral interviews were  major instrument used in data collection and simple percentages were used in analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire. Four hypotheses were formulated. Z-statistics was applied for test of hypotheses and the following findings were made: that materials procurement has a significant effect on the profitability of brewing firms; that materials storage has significant effect on the profitability of brewing firms; that materials inventory has a significant contribution to the profitability of brewing firms; and that interdepartmental collaboration significantly contributed to the profitability of brewing firms. Based on the above findings, the study therefore concludes that effective materials management is indispensible to brewing firms in making profits. However, the study recommended that all manufacturing firms should embrace effective and efficient materials management in order to remain profitable.