Material Intelligence

The Material Intelligence module is ORKSTRA's answer to the messy reality of construction material procurement and on-site consumption in the UAE/KSA/Egypt corridor. It ships a curated UAE materials catalog, a site request workflow, consumption tracking, and AI-assisted shortage prediction and theft detection.

Overview

Materials accounts for 40-60% of a contractor's cost on most jobs. Getting it wrong — over-ordering, under-ordering, theft, waste, schedule slippage — destroys margin. Material Intelligence gives the team a single dashboard that connects procurement, store, site, and finance.

Screenshot: Materials dashboard with consumption trends, low-stock alerts, and anomaly flags

Key concepts

Material catalog. 245 pre-seeded UAE materials with standard codes, units, typical brands, typical UAE retail price ranges, and typical consumption rates. The catalog is tenant-extensible.

Material request. A site engineer's request for material — RFM-2026-0123. Routed for approval via the Approvals engine.

GRN (Goods Received Note). The receipt event when material physically arrives. Captures supplier, delivery note, photos, and any short/damaged quantities.

Issue. The handover from store to site. Captures the trade requesting and the BOQ line being executed.

Consumption. Calculated from issues + waste reports + return-to-store events. Compared to the BOQ planned quantity to flag over-consumption.

AI shortage prediction. A daily model projects future demand from BOQ remaining quantities, schedule, and historical issue rates. Flags imminent shortages 7-14 days ahead.

Theft / anomaly detection. Heuristic detector that compares consumption against planned and historical rates, flagging unusual spikes, off-hours issues, or repeated short-delivery patterns.

Step-by-step: raise a material request

1. Go to Materials → Requests → New request.
2. Pick the project and trade.
3. Add lines: material code from catalog, quantity, required date.
4. (Optional) Attach drawings or BOQ line reference.
5. Submit. The request enters the configured approval workflow.

Step-by-step: record a GRN

1. Materials → GRN → New GRN.
2. Pick the supplier and the related PO.
3. Enter the delivery note number.
4. For each PO line, enter received quantity and any short/damage notes.
5. Upload photos (driver, vehicle, material stack).
6. Submit — stock balance updates and the requester is notified.

Step-by-step: issue to site

1. Materials → Issues → New issue.
2. Pick the receiving foreman/trade.
3. Pick BOQ lines being executed.
4. Enter quantities. The store-keeper signs digitally; the foreman signs digitally.
5. Submit — the issue is logged and consumption updates.

Common tasks

• Check stock balance: Materials → Stock shows real-time balance by material and project.
• View consumption vs. plan: Materials → Reports → Consumption for the gap analysis.
• Review AI alerts: Materials → Insights for shortage predictions and anomaly flags.
• Bulk import catalog: Premium tenants can bulk import their own catalog via Excel.

Troubleshooting

• "My request was rejected with no reason." — Open the request — the approver's comments are on the timeline.
• "Stock shows negative." — Likely an issue was recorded before its GRN. Investigate the date sequence.
• "AI predicts shortage but I have stock." — The prediction uses project-attributable stock. Material allocated to another project doesn't count.
• "Theft flag is a false positive." — Mark it as such; the model learns from feedback over time.

Limits

• Max catalog size: 10,000 materials per tenant.
• Max attachments per GRN: 20 photos / 100 MB total.
• AI shortage horizon: 14 days.

Permissions reference

Permission	Who needs it
MATERIAL_VIEW	Site engineers, store-keepers
MATERIAL_REQUEST_CREATE	Site engineers, foremen
MATERIAL_GRN_CREATE	Store-keepers
MATERIAL_ISSUE_CREATE	Store-keepers
MATERIAL_CATALOG_EDIT	Procurement managers
MATERIAL_AI_INSIGHTS_VIEW	PMs, Procurement

See also: BOQ, Predictive Analytics, Assets & Equipment.