Investigation on energy efficiency of lighting system in a university library

The electrical lighting system is one of the most significant contributors to energy consumption and operational cost for a library building. The extended operation of the lighting system in the library building consumes a high amount of energy, which requires the adoption of energy efficiency implementation to reduce energy consumption and to overcome energy waste. The objective of this paper is to present the outcomes of investigation on the energy efficiency of the lighting system in a university library building. The lighting system operated in a library building in one of the universities in Malaysia was chosen as the subject of the case study. A semi-structured face to face interview was carried out to interview four respondents who currently in-charge in the lighting system operation of university library building under the study. Looking at the results of the study, the lighting system of the university library is not energy efficient which leads to high energy consumption. To overcome energy waste, the results revealed that a proper guideline for the adoption of energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the lighting system is essential to be developed by the university authority for the university library

Evaluating energy efficiency of lighting system in university library building

Library buildings consume a large quantity of energy for user services and ensuring the comfort in the building which these have produced a considerable waste on the energy usage. Lighting system is one of the largest contributors in the energy consumption and operational cost of a library building. The implementation of energy efficiency of lighting system is needed in order to reduce the energy consumption of lighting system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study energy efficiency of lighting system in the university library building. The library building at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) is chosen as the subject matter of the study. A semi-structured interview was carried out to interview four respondents who currently in-charge in the IIUM library building operation. The results revealed the majority of the respondents agreed that the IIUM Library building did not implement the energy efficient criteria in fixing the lighting system which lead to high energy consumption. A proper guideline to improve the energy efficiency of lighting system in IIUM library was identified as the top priority strategy which proposed by the majority of the respondents in the study

Investigation of quality of data input in life cycle cost analysis of rigid pavement type

Roads in Malaysia are divided into two main categories, which are flexible and rigid pavements. The cost for constructing and maintaining the roads and highways is very high. Due to the limitation of budget, the life cycle cost (LCC) analysis for cost estimation of rigid pavement is important. However, one of the major obstacles of implementing LCC analysis in the rigid pavement is lack of current and reliable data inputs. Most of the scholars and estimators focused on the LCC conversion but very little emphasis is given on the availability, accessibility, currency and reliability of data inputs in producing reliable LCC outputs. The objective if this paper is to present the proposal of research to investigate the quality of cost data input for LCC analysis of rigid pavement type in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The Federal Roads in Klang Valley are chosen as the subject matter of the study. The methodology chosen for the study will be the qualitative research strategy that includes two approaches, i.e. secondary data collection (literature review) and primary data collection (Focus Group Discussion). The expected outcome of this study will be a developed step-bystep methodology that will be proposed to improve the quality of data inputs in LCC analysis of rigid pavement type

A review on the quality of data inputs in life cycle cost analysis of rigid pavement maintenance in Malaysia

The implementation of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis is crucial in the cost estimation of rigid pavement type due to the high cost for constructing and maintaining the roads and highways in Malaysia. LCC analysis are being used as a decision support tool when selecting pavement type, which also used to evaluate maintenance strategies for the pavement type. Roads in Malaysia can be divided into two types, i.e. rigid pavement and flexible pavement. In this paper, the study will be focusing on the rigid pavement maintenance since there is very limited number of new construction of rigid pavement in Malaysia. The outcome of the initial study shows that, most of the road construction industry key players are aware that LCC should be practiced and applied in the rigid pavement construction and maintenance. However, one of the major difficulties of implementing the LCC analysis of rigid pavement maintenance is lack of updated and reliable data inputs. Most of the scholars and estimators are mainly focused on the LCC conversion but very limited in emphasizing the quality of data inputs (i.e. availability, accessibility, currency and reliability of data inputs) for producing reliable LCC outputs. The objective of this paper is to review the quality of data inputs of LCC analysis for cost estimation of rigid pavement maintenance. The findings provide current information on the state of quality of data inputs of LCC analysis of rigid pavement maintenance

Identification of cost data inputs in Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of alternative road pavement types

Life Cycle Cost (LCC) is an economic assessment technique that produces outputs, which can be used to provide cost information to the LCC estimators, clients and researchers in facilitating them to compare the most cost-effective of mutually exclusive alternative road pavement types. LCC estimates total ownership costs of the road pavement which connects the initial capital costs and future costs to produce outputs that can be used to identify potential cost saving and demonstrate value for money procurement. There are different kinds of data to be used as inputs in LCC analysis and the type of data to be used is contingent upon the intended output of the LCC analysis. Past researches reported that the quality, currency and adequacy of data used as inputs in LCC estimation are of paramount importance in effort to produce reliable LCC outputs. The aim of this research is to enhance the quality of data input requirements for a comprehensive and reliable LCC estimation of road pavement types in Malaysian construction industry. The research focuses only on cost data inputs used in estimating LCC. The methodology employed for the research comprised a comprehensive review of related literature and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with a group of panellists that have experience, skills and knowledge in LCC. The outcomes of the research is a protocol of LCC of data input requirements for two road pavement types (i.e. flexible and rigid pavements) that comprises a flow chart, step by step methodological approach and remarks. The protocol has been developed, evaluated, validated and tested with the FGD panellists to provide appropriate and robust procedures on how the cost data could be made more quality as inputs into the process of estimating LCC and determining the most economic viability of alternative road pavement types

A review on the state of cost data inputs of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) for rigid pavement maintenance and rehabilitation in Malaysia

Many scholars asserted that LCC plays an important role in the cost estimation of rigid pavement due to high construction, maintenance and reconstruction costs in Malaysia. Due to high budget allocation and expenditure on the maintenance and rehabilitation works of pavements in Malaysia by the government, it is crucial for the transportation agencies to optimize the budget allocation and select the most cost-effective pavement maintenance and rehabilitation alternatives. LCC is a useful economic assessment technique that compares the cost-effectiveness of different maintenance and rehabilitation approaches within the same road pavement type. However, in order to produce a comprehensive and reliable LCC output, there is need to ensure the cost data inputs is ready and quality enough to be used in the LCC estimation. This paper presents the outcomes of the comprehensive literature review on the state of cost data inputs for LCC analysis of rigid pavement maintenance and rehabilitation in Malaysia. The outcomes of the literature study have established that the majority of the construction industry key players are aware LCC analysis should be practiced in the rigid pavement maintenance and rehabilitation. However, the current state of LCC practice of rigid pavement maintenance and rehabilitation in Malaysia is still at the infancy stage and unready to be implemented due to the difficulties in attaining quality cost data for generating a comprehensive and reliable LCC analysis. The findings provide information on the current state of cost data inputs of LCC analysis of rigid pavement maintenance and rehabilitation in the Malaysian construction industry

Life cycle cost and performance assessment: comparison between reconstruction and cold-in-place recycling (CIPR) methods

The Malaysian government has spent a large amount of money to keep maintaining the quality of Federal roads in Malaysia. In the face of high cost of road maintenance, increasing demands of road users, changing volume of traffic condition, in company with scarce of funds and limited budget allocated, the clients, including the government agencies and private investors, are looking for the most appropriate road rehabilitation method, which able to produce high-quality pavement performance and facilitate them to achieve potential cost saving and the best value for money. The reconstruction work is a conventional method that usually applied to rehabilitate flexible pavement. The cold-in-place recycling (CIPR) is an alternative method, which has been employed in many countries worldwide, including Malaysia to rehabilitate flexible pavement. The objective of this paper is to present the outcomes of the comparative study of life cycle cost and pavement performance between two exclusive alternatives of road rehabilitation for flexible pavement, i.e. cold-in-place recycling (CIPR) and reconstruction. The life cycle cost and performance of the flexible pavement, which has been rehabilitated using the CIPR and reconstruction methods, were evaluated to identify the correlation between the costs incurred against the performance gained. Theoretically a high strength pavement should be able to sustain longer life. The results have established that the total cost of the reconstruction method is cheaper than the CIPR. However, looking at the performance of the flexible pavement, the CIPR method is superior to the reconstruction method for both the functional and structural strength performance