272 Sixth International Conference on Construction in the 21 st Century (CITC-VI) “Construction Challenges in the New Decade” July 5-7 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Construction Logistics Management in Building Projects in Iran: the Warehousing Process Ehsan Asnaashari PhD Candidate, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK ehsan.asnaashari@ntu.ac.uk Babak Karam Barangi Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran b.karambarangi@srbiau.ac.ir Siamak Karam Barangi Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran Abstract Logistics has been recognized as a major factor in industrial organizations for many years. However, it has not been applied appropriately in construction yet. The reason is that the nature of construction is different to other industries like manufacturing or food. Some characteristics of construction industry like matchless projects, fragmented supply chain, unique design, temporary organization, and working in different geographical locations, necessitates undertaking a new approach for managing logistics in construction projects. Construction logistics is a system with six agents (sub-systems): (1) site preparation, (2) purchasing, (3) delivery, (4) handling methods, (5) warehousing and (6) monitoring. This paper only covers issues regarding storage and the warehousing process. Owning to the space, staff and equipment that are required, warehousing is a costly element of a logistics system and therefore it should be manage efficiently. This paper aims to describe and evaluate the current practice of warehousing in construction sites to explicate existing problems and share best practice. To achieve reliable results, a qualitative research methodology is adopted which includes two parts. First, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to understand the current body of knowledge in the area. Second, twenty open- ended interviews were carried out with experienced practitioners to bring insight to the research. The study focused on the Iranian building industry as the main source of data collection. After gathering enough data, a conventional template analysis is used to analyze textual data. Results are rich and exploratory and explain opinions, norms and attitudes. Keywords Building Projects, Iran, Logistics Management, Qualitative Analysis, Warehousing. 1. Introduction Logistics has been recognized as a major factor in the industrial organizations for many years. In Iran logistics represents more than 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Iran Logistics Society (ILS), 2007). According to recent investigations in different countries, on average, 62 percent of total logistics costs of each country go to the transportation sector, 34 percent to warehousing and maintenance, and only four percent to logistics management (ILS, 2007). Despite consuming the lowest proportion of logistics costs, logistics management has the most effect on logistics cost saving. As