Barriers and strategies for better safety practices: the case of construction SMEs in Malaysia

Despite the various efforts that have been made by the government and construction authorities to strengthen safety practices among SMEs in Malaysia, the construction SMEs are still unable to demonstrate good safety practices. As part of a wider intervention study to improve the safety practices of the SMEs, this study has taken the first step in identifying the barriers and strategies to improve the safety practices at construction sites in Malaysia. The study has been conducted using various approaches (workshops, site observation and questionnaire survey) that have enabled the triangulation of information. The findings highlighted that the main barriers to good safety practices are the implementation costs, poor safety culture and lack of safety commitment from the client. The proposed solutions include introducing safety as one of the construction KPIs, creating more safety-conscious culture and establishing a funding mechanism to support the cost of safety training. Subsequently, several recommendations have been provided by collating inputs based on the barriers, strategies and drivers through three-party collaboration (authorities, industry and academia) in creating  a collaborative movement towards enhancing safety practices among the SMEs. The fresh insights from this study would enable authorities and SMEs to be more proactive, rather than reactive in improving safety practices in the construction industry

Awareness and Barriers of Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0 between Construction Players and Academicians in Malaysia

The digitisation of technologies heavily influences the construction industry with requirements for a new set of knowledge and a skilled workforce. Relatively, the adoption of Industry 4.0 in the work environment changes the current pedagogy at educational institutions through Education 4.0. The importance of adopting and adapting Industry 4.0 with Education 4.0 in construction engineering pedagogy is to create awareness of innovative technologies and to equip graduates with futuristic skills and knowledge. Even though the adoption of Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0 has taken place in the field of construction, limited studies were found on this subject matter, particularly in comparing the awareness between the industry and academia. Hence, this study examines the awareness and barriers of Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0 adoption between the industry players and academicians from the construction engineering perspective. A structured questionnaire survey was developed and distributed within public construction projects and public universities across Peninsular Malaysia. Data for this study were collected through face-to-face meetings and online survey distribution. Findings from the two different categories of respondents with different age range and academic qualifications provide similar, as well as dissimilar outcomes on the awareness and knowledge in accordance with their nature of work. Nonetheless, both distinct respondents have found financial constraint to be the most critical barrier for Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0 adoption. This study provides the revelation on the current state of awareness, knowledge and barriers among the players (industry and academic) in construction engineering and these insights could be further delineated for future action plans in aim to increase the adoption of Industry 4.0 within the field.   Keywords: Industry 4.0, Education 4.0, Construction Engineering, Industry Practitioners, Academicians

Perspective and Practices of Social Sustainability across Construction Project Lifecycle

Previous research has suggested incorporating social sustainability into the construction project lifecycle. However, the understanding and means of incorporating social sustainability practices throughout the project lifecycle remain unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to fill a knowledge gap by investigating the “real experiences” and “perspectives” of industry practitioners on social sustainability practices throughout the construction project lifecycle. The study began with a literature review to identify social sustainability attributes, which were then confirmed through structured interviews with 15 practitioners, and the data were then analysed thematically. The practitioners unanimously agreed that the social sustainability attributes could be divided into nine (9) main attributes along with the 20 sub-attributes, namely: 1) safety and health; 2) impact assessment; 3) employment; 4) stakeholder involvement; 5) satisfaction; 6) quality education; 7) social procurement; 8) protection design/belonging; and 9) human right. The practitioners have positioned the nine main social sustainability attributes into the different phases of the construction project lifecycle, based on actual practices in their projects and their professional opinion on the subject matter. Stakeholder Involvement shows the largest gap for improvement (31.7%), followed by the attributes of Worker Health and Safety (23.3%), Protection of Cultural Heritage (21.7%), and Social Procurement (21.7%). Findings from this study would benefit the industry stakeholders in incorporating social sustainability at different phases of the construction project lifecycle. The framework gives a comprehensive understanding of social sustainability that can be utilized to enhance construction project planning and sustainable development. The novelty also lies in the consolidation of social sustainability attributes for practitioners in construction that could act as a reference for any future developments related to social sustainability in construction

Perspective and Practices of Social Sustainability across Construction Project Lifecycle

Previous research has suggested incorporating social sustainability into the construction project lifecycle. However, the understanding and means of incorporating social sustainability practices throughout the project lifecycle remain unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to fill a knowledge gap by investigating the “real experiences” and “perspectives” of industry practitioners on social sustainability practices throughout the construction project lifecycle. The study began with a literature review to identify social sustainability attributes, which were then confirmed through structured interviews with 15 practitioners, and the data were then analysed thematically. The practitioners unanimously agreed that the social sustainability attributes could be divided into nine (9) main attributes along with the 20 sub-attributes, namely: 1) safety and health; 2) impact assessment; 3) employment; 4) stakeholder involvement; 5) satisfaction; 6) quality education; 7) social procurement; 8) protection design/belonging; and 9) human right. The practitioners have positioned the nine main social sustainability attributes into the different phases of the construction project lifecycle, based on actual practices in their projects and their professional opinion on the subject matter. Stakeholder Involvement shows the largest gap for improvement (31.7%), followed by the attributes of Worker Health and Safety (23.3%), Protection of Cultural Heritage (21.7%), and Social Procurement (21.7%). Findings from this study would benefit the industry stakeholders in incorporating social sustainability at different phases of the construction project lifecycle. The framework gives a comprehensive understanding of social sustainability that can be utilized to enhance construction project planning and sustainable development. The novelty also lies in the consolidation of social sustainability attributes for practitioners in construction that could act as a reference for any future developments related to social sustainability in construction

Industrial revolution (IR) 4.0 in construction engineering education: a bibliometric analysis

Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) is a high technology digitization to enhance communication networks, organization and management, as well as production and processes across industries. The rate of changes and its convergence towards IR 4.0 would require new talent, knowledge and skills for current and future generations to retain and generate new workforces. As technology in the construction industry is evolving at a fast pace, the current teaching-learning syllabus and pedagogy should transform accordingly to accommodate future job requirements. Due to the rawness of this concept in the construction industry and to its education, this study aims to explore the state of the art as well as the state of practice of IR 4.0 and Education 4.0 from the perspective of construction engineering. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to analyze the relevant research papers related to IR 4.0 and Education 4.0 within the Scopus database, ranging from year 2011 until present. A bibliometric analysis has been outlined following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta- Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Findings from this study would provide a thorough understanding on the past efforts in advancing the construction engineering education aspect, subsequently highlighting gaps to be filled for future endeavors, particularly in equipping the construction engineering education for IR 4.0

Towards Successful Social Collaboration in BIM-based Construction: A Review

The existence of digital applications in construction industry has opened the floodgates to a better integration and collaboration. In particular, Building Information Modelling (BIM) provides construction stakeholders greater visualisation of project information and communications across multi-organisations. Despite the explicit benefits, the study on what it takes to drive the successfulness of social collaboration in BIM still remain elusive. This paper presents a review of the literature to identify the key elements of social collaboration in BIM-based construction projects. The review identified three key elements (i.e. foundational platform, organisational context and behavioural context) which together form the nexus for successful social collaborative practice. The findings in this study extend the collaboration literature in construction domain by providing deeper insights into the characterisation and importance of social collaboration in digital environment

A Theoretical Exploration on the Standing of Liberal Arts in the Civil Engineering Curriculum

Civil engineers' lack of humanities values might result in mismatches between the former and latter. One major hiccup and potential remedy to this situation lie in the civil engineering curriculum. This study aims to explore liberal arts in the civil engineering curriculum through a systematic literature review. This study is among the few recent undertakings that have relived the importance of liberal arts in the civil engineering curriculum to produce well-rounded civil engineers. Both technical and human skills are required to confront the dynamic and ever-changing society inherent in the growth of civil engineering students as future engineers. Keywords: civil engineering; curriculum; liberal arts; systematic literature review eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i19.326

Making Sense of Multi-Actor Social Collaboration in Building Information Modelling Level 2 Projects: A Case in Malaysia

Despite the diversity of thinking among the scholars on building information modelling (BIM) collaboration, there is a paucity of studies that capture the dimension of social collaboration in BIM projects. This study attempts to develop a comprehensive understanding on the key attributes of multi-actor social collaboration in BIM projects through the experience of practitioners in BIM-Level 2 construction project. The success of multi-actor social collaboration has been investigated through structured interviews with 22 BIM practitioners in a BIM-Level 2 project based on an established theoretical framework of social collaboration. The findings indicted that relationship-oriented attributes; relational contracts BIM execution plan; guideline, standard and work process manual approaches; employer information requirement (EIR); understanding roles and leadership; commitment from top management; resources; training, team building workshop and awareness program; coordination; and understanding on the theoretical knowledge of BIM are of importance towards multi-actor social BIM collaboration. This study acknowledges that the success of multi-actor social collaboration was influenced by the consolidation of many attributes, and it extends the dominant relationship between related attributes for multi-actor social collaboration based on the "best practice approach", which includes dominant-centric attributes (i.e., behaviour formation, procurement model and support principles). This research contributes to the body of BIM knowledge in the construction domain by focusing on what it takes to achieve greater social collaboration in BIM Level 2 projects

Exploring behavioural factors for information sharing in BIM projects in the Malaysian construction industry

© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: Despite the wave of enthusiasm for building information modelling (BIM) as a platform for information sharing, issues from the context of information-sharing behaviours still exist. The purpose of this paper is to explore the behavioural factors for successful information sharing in BIM projects in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a literature review, a questionnaire was designed containing seven identified behavioural factors and their sub-elements. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 42 experienced BIM practitioners. In addition to that qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine construction practitioners in the Malaysian construction industry. Initially, a descriptive statistical analysis was adopted, followed by multivariate analysis that was employed to examine the possible effect of demographic attributes (i.e. nature of organisation and work experience in BIM) on the behavioural factors. Findings: The analytical results indicated that communication, accountability and trust were the top three behavioural factors influencing successful information sharing. Additionally, the majority of the behavioural factors on information sharing were found to be not significantly dependent on both, the nature of organisations and the level of BIM experiences. Overall, the success of information sharing in the digital environment (i.e. BIM) depends on organisational behaviour supported by the collaborative constructs. Research limitations/implications: Due to the fact that BIM implementation in Malaysia is still in its infancy, this study was limited to local context with small-scale BIM practitioners. Therefore, their views may not represent all BIM-related stakeholders in the industry. Practical implications: The success of information sharing in BIM projects is a result of a combination of various factors, and this study provides construction practitioners with information on the behavioural factors, which could assist them in creating collective and collaborative information sharing in a digital environment. Originality/value: Despite the fact that this study is country specific, the paper presents a new perspective on the behavioural context of information sharing in BIM projects. The findings further extend the current BIM literature by providing an insight into what it takes for project teams to reinforce their information sharing in the Malaysian digital environment through improvements in behaviours

The Impact of Human Relationships to Material Acquisition in Construction Projects

Construction projects have long been plagued with issues of delays, over budget and poor quality. One of the main factors that have been associated with the common issues is material acquisition, with delays in the arrival of material, poor material quality, materials that do not comply with the required specification, unavailability of required construction materials, damaged materials, loss of construction materials sent to site, theft and vandalism. Even though construction material acquisition is an arising problem in the industry, the studies conducted in this area is still scarce. Previous studies have mainly focused on isolated subjects in material acquisition, rather than the entire spectrum on the subject matter. Therefore, this study aims to establish the improvement strategies for construction material acquisition from the human relationships perspective. A quantitative questionnaire was sent to the respondents via email, personally distributed to the contractor’s office, WhatsApp's application and google form to 1200 active contractor that have been registered with CIDB Malaysia under grade G7. The respondents were limited to purposive sampling criteria which have been determined earlier. Based on the data from 286 questionnaires, findings in this research were structured and analysed using descriptive statistical analysis (mean, standard deviation and frequency) with the aid of SPSS24 software. Finding from the results revealed that the improvement of human relationship was critical to improve construction material acquisition hence, addressing urgent issues including long term relationship such as trust, experience, and responsiveness, clearly understand the client’s needs and objectives, establish strategic partnership with suppliers and long-term resources commitment achieved the highest percentage from respondents. Finally, the study on the impact of human relationships to material acquisition in construction projects can be used as a guidance to enhance the construction material acquisition approach for contractors undertaking projects in Malaysia