DATA ARCHITECTURE OF BUILDING MATERIALS USING WEB-BASED TECHNOLOGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL MANAGEMENT

Construction materials are vital resources in the running of the construction industry, whereas, the issues of unavailability, over-supply, storage of materials and construction waste have dire consequences for the environment. The study aimed to evaluate the concept of data architecture of building materials using web-based technologies with a view to ensuring sustainable material management. The study made use of a web-based system developed using HTML, PHP programming language and a database system through MySQL. An evaluation of the system showed the capabilities of using the web-based system to estimate building materials to be used on the construction project. The system showed the proficiency of storing the total inventory of building materials on a construction project. Finally, the web-based system is able to use raw data from the building materials to generate reports that can be used to achieve sustainable material management. Construction professionals are able to compare actual materials used on their projects versus the estimated values. These information can be useful in effective and efficient planning and decision making on ongoing projects and future developments.