Materials management: often overlooked, but crucial to service and maintenance
3 August, 2026
Materials management is rarely at the top of the agenda when organisations discuss service and maintenance. The subject is often seen as a supporting function: something that will sort itself out as long as the warehouse is stocked and the logistics are in order. Precisely because materials management operates behind the scenes of day-to-day operations, its impact often goes unnoticed. It is only when things go wrong that the true extent of the organisation’s dependence on it becomes apparent.
In this blog post, you can read about how materials management impacts asset and service processes, why it is crucial to the feasibility of maintenance and service, and how you can add extra value in practice.
What is materials management?
At its core, materials management is about moving components. Materials are purchased from suppliers, stored in warehouses and then moved to where they are needed, for example a production site, infrastructure such as a pipeline or railway line, or a customer’s premises.
As materials are constantly in flux, there is a tension between availability and cost. Too much stock ties up capital, whilst too little stock limits the ability to respond quickly to urgent breakdowns. In both cases, the organisation is exposed to financial risk.
From a logistics challenge to operational impact
This pressure becomes a reality as soon as maintenance or servicing needs to be carried out. A fault can only be rectified once the correct part is available. Preventive maintenance requires materials to be ordered in good time, and service appointments can only be honoured if technicians set out with the correct parts.
Nevertheless, in many organisations, materials management is still treated as a peripheral logistics issue, separate from maintenance and service processes. It is precisely here that a gap arises between what is planned and what proves feasible in practice.
The link between planning and implementation
In day-to-day practice, materials management lies at the intersection of planning and execution. Without materials, a maintenance plan remains theoretical and service planning becomes vulnerable. It is precisely in the transition from paper to practice that materials management reveals its true value (or, conversely, its weakness).
If planners do not have a reliable picture of availability, work orders are prepared on the basis of assumptions. When technicians are unsure whether materials are ready, delays arise even before the work begins. Materials management therefore plays a major role in determining whether plans are actually feasible.
From that perspective, it also becomes clear why the role of materials in maintenance is often more complex than it appears at first glance, and why work planning plays such a crucial role in service management.
Asset management: materials as a component of asset reliability
In asset management contexts, materials management plays a different role to that in service environments, as materials are directly linked to the availability and reliability of physical assets.
Materials used in maintenance: more than just spare parts
Within maintenance processes, the role of materials is often reduced to that of spare parts, whilst in reality the issue is broader. In every maintenance activity, the question arises as to which part is technically suitable for a specific asset, whether that part is available at the right location, and what happens to the part being replaced. Is it disposed of, or is it repaired and reused?
It is also important that the administrative asset structure remains consistent with the physical reality. If this consistency is lacking, it becomes difficult to plan maintenance and the risk of errors increases. This is precisely the area of tension at the heart of asset maintenance and maintenance processes.
Asset-driven environments: within the organisation’s boundaries
This complexity is most pronounced in asset-intensive sectors, such as manufacturing, the process industry, utilities and infrastructure. In these sectors, materials management remains largely within the organisation itself. Materials move from suppliers to warehouses and from there to production sites or maintenance teams.
A single missing component can lead to production downtime, infrastructure failure or safety risks. In practice, the costs of downtime often prove to be much higher than the costs of holding stock, but this realisation usually only dawns when things go wrong.
In this context, materials management is less about speed and more about reliability. It requires an understanding of which components are critical, what lead times are associated with them, and how maintenance plans translate into material requirements; considerations that are directly linked to asset investments and the lifecycle approach to assets.
Service management: resources outside the organisation
In service management contexts, this picture is changing. Assets are no longer managed exclusively within the organisation’s boundaries, but form part of a dynamic chain that extends to customer sites and out into the field.
When materials leave the organisation
Complexity increases as soon as materials leave the organisation. In service-driven environments, materials are not only held in warehouses, but also in delivery vans, regional depots and at customer sites. Here, materials are no longer a static stock, but part of a dynamic logistics chain.
Parts must be available in advance for specific jobs and must reach the right technician or the right location at the right time. In practice, this means, for example, that delivery vans are stocked overnight with materials for the following day’s work. If anything is missing, this almost always leads to extra journeys, delays or a service order that cannot be completed in one go.
Reverse flows and loss of overview
Furthermore, materials often recirculate in service contexts. Parts may turn out to be unused, be replaced by alternatives, or be returned in a damaged condition – sometimes with the potential for refurbishment. This makes the logistics process considerably more complex than it appears at first glance.
Without clear agreements and proper record-keeping, it is easy to lose track of things. For example, materials are left lying around in delivery vans or are not correctly recorded as returned. The result is a growing discrepancy between what is recorded as being in stock and what is physically available.
Project sites and temporary logistics
In addition to regular maintenance and service processes, there are also contexts in which materials management takes on a temporary, project-based nature. In project-based contexts, such as construction and infrastructure, materials are procured on a project-by-project basis, stored temporarily and often moved several times before they are actually used.
The challenge here lies less in consumption itself and more in transparency. Where is the material currently located? Which project is it intended for? And when will it be released again? If this information is lacking, it can lead to delays, duplicate orders and disputes over costs and responsibility.
Registration as a prerequisite for control
What all these situations have in common is that effective management depends entirely on record-keeping. Materials are reserved in advance, but it does not always turn out that everything is needed during the project. It must be possible to record easily and immediately what has actually been used, what is returned and what becomes defective.
Particularly for teams (such as technicians) who are out and about, easy-to-use recording systems are essential to prevent the records from falling behind the actual situation. Only then can stock information remain reliable, and can planning and new orders be based on up-to-date data in SAP.
The warehouse as the cornerstone of the supply chain
Ultimately, that record-keeping and control converge in one place: the warehouse. Receipts, reservations, issues, internal transfers and stock takes form the basis on which maintenance and service rely. If inaccuracies arise here, they have a knock-on effect throughout the entire chain. Consider, for example, planners who lose track of things or technicians who find themselves short of materials, meaning that corrections can only be made retrospectively and manually. A reliable warehouse process is therefore not an operational luxury, but a prerequisite for stable maintenance and service processes.
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
Case study: managing warehouse processes in day-to-day operations
The fact that this is not merely a theoretical issue is also evident from real-world practice. At our client, the Ardagh Group, spare parts are repaired in the warehouse and made available again. It is crucial that these parts are immediately written off against stock and recorded in the accounts, so that stock levels remain accurate and reuse can be tracked.
Instead of updating records retrospectively at a fixed workstation, warehouse staff record their activities directly whilst they are working. With mobile support, such as the Inventory Clerk functionality within SAP, they can use a hand-held scanner to record materials as and when they are repaired or issued. This ensures that physical work and administrative recording are better aligned, whilst maintaining control over the supply chain.
Added value during service visits
If materials are available at the right time, the role of the service call also changes. A technician doesn’t just come to fix a fault, but often spots opportunities on site to deliver added value. Think of parts that can be replaced as a preventative measure or accessories that reduce wear and tear.
This opportunity only arises if the materials are actually available. Without the right materials, such an opportunity remains untapped, regardless of how well the conversation with the customer goes. Effective materials management processes enable this added value without making the service process any more complex.
Conclusion: why this topic deserves ongoing attention
The examples in this article show that materials management has a major impact on the day-to-day delivery of maintenance, service and projects. It determines whether work can be carried out correctly first time and whether organisations can keep costs and risks under control.
Organisations that do not treat materials management as a stand-alone function, but instead integrate it into their overall operations, ensure a smoother workflow. They plan more realistically and prevent disruptions. This leads to more stable maintenance and service processes, to which you can therefore even add extra value.
A discussion on service and asset management
As specialists in service and asset management, we are regularly involved in issues of this kind. Sometimes these relate to the role of materials management in maintenance, sometimes to the feasibility of service processes, and in other cases to the way in which organisations maintain control over their supply chain.
Depending on the context, topics covered include mobile support for technicians or warehouse staff within SAP, including the SAP Service and Asset Manager (SSAM) and the Inventory Clerk functionality.
Would you like to find out more? Please get in touch with our team. They’ll be happy to help.
