Business Process Outsourcing For Kubang Pasu Land Office

Many organizations are increasingly outsourcing their back-office operations through IT applications. This scenario due to number of reasons leading by the cost reduction, shortened time-to-time, lack of internal expertise and risk reduction. However, the adoptions of back-office model are still new for many organizations. Only a few organizations have formal approach to make back-office outsourcing decision. In Malaysia context, many governmental organizations nowadays are moving towards e-government to improve their services and business through IT outsourcing. Outsourcing is a dynamic process in the sense that the related decisions and actions must continuously to changes in strategic direction of the organization. This work reveals on the problem facing by each units at Kubang Pasu Land Office due to the five thousand backlog files. At the meantime, this work also determining the potential back-office process that can be outsourcing in order to give effective and efficient services to citizen

Neural network-based prediction models for physical properties of oil palm medium density fiberboard / Faridah Sh. Ismail

Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) is an alternative to solid wood used in furniture industries. As an engineered wood, MDF needs to establish the strength level to guarantee its quality. The test procedures for mechanical and physical properties of MDF should conform to a specified standard, prior to releasing processed fiberboards for manufacturing. These tests are costly for they involve a high amount of resources, especially to research institutions. The primary aim of this research is to reduce testing time of three lengthy procedures; namely, 24-hour thickness swelling, 24-hour water absorption and 48-hour moisture content. An intelligent predictive model will replace the lengthy procedures by predicting the properties using known fiberboard characteristics. Back-propagation algorithm is a training method widely used in a multilayer perceptron Neural Network model. It optimizes random values for network weights and biases. However, the result normally faces local optima problems. This situation can be solved by embedding Genetic Algorithm (GA) in the network to replace back-propagation method

Reliability issues and improvement of preliminaries cost related items for civil engineering conventional contracts

Civil engineering is a professional discipline that deals with built environment which involves physical construction of man-made structures such as roads, rails, bridges, drains, water supply, geotechnical systems, and services. It also deals with soft skills such as maintenance, research and investigation, conservation, and planning. In Malaysia, it is a prerogative that civil engineers administer civil engineering contracts. The preliminaries are an integral part of the bill of quantities and difficult to price due to their nature. However, the contractor is expected to price all items fully. The engineer prepares the preliminaries but the risk and liabilities are ultimately transferred to the contractor notwithstanding the reliability of the bill itself. As such, the reliability of preliminaries is of the utmost concern. The research focused on the improvement of the reliability of the preliminaries. The aim is to improve the effectiveness of present preliminaries in Civil Engineering conventional contracts. The objectives are, (1) To investigate the existing cost of item consideration and strategic approaches, (2) To improve the criteria of cost-related item components and expand their potential strategies. This paper considered previous research findings and highlighted the issues and problems related to the fallacy of the subject. Based on the preliminary survey (N=18), it was obvious that the issues concerning the reliability of preliminaries do exist. The research proceeded with a mass survey (N=270) of stratified data sampling involving Malaysian civil engineering contractors belonging to G7 CE21 class, as well as civil engineering consultants and developers. The survey used Likert scales, which ranged from 1 for “Strongly Disagree” to 5 for “Strongly Agree”. The analysis predominantly used SPSS statistics. The results conspicuously exposed the issues and the weaknesses of present practices. The improvement in the criteria of the present practices’ is expected to increase the reliability of preliminaries. As a way forward, the improved criteria provide better clarity, accuracy, and transparency to engineers and contractors as well as other construction players in general. Reliable preliminary items improve price accuracy for the betterment of the construction industry

Social Factors Influencing Hazardous Street Trees at Selected City Council in Malaysia

Street trees are an important part of city development. Proper tree management provides conducive environment for socialization. Previous research revealed the social factors and hazards associated with urban street trees but the elements that influence was not known. The objectives are: to investigate the elements of the social factors and to determine the influence of these elements towards hazardous street trees.480 questionnaires distributed among expert and public within 9 city councils. The findings revealed that 5 elements that influence the hazardous street trees; uncontrollable street planting, tree vandalism, near to neighbourhood context, lack of public awareness and poor nursery stock and failure care.Keywords: Street trees; hazards; influencing; failure trees;© 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA 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) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Environmental constraints in selecting urban trees: landscape architect’ views / Ramly Hasan, Noriah Othman and Faridah Ismail.

This research explored the environmental constraints based on landscape architect’s views in selecting urban trees. Two objectives have been formulated (i) to examine the practice in selecting tree species among landscape architects and (ii) to determine the relationship between practice and environmental constraints in selecting urban tree species. The findings showed that specific criteria of the environmental constraints are positively correlated and have a strong relationship with tree selection practice. The views of the landscape architect are pertinent in tree selection practice. The findings of this research will contribute to practise improvement in selecting urban tree species by landscape architects in the future

Tree Species Selection in Street Planting: It’s relationship with issues in urban area

Trees in urban areas are an invaluable resource. Careful consideration and attention should be given to tree species selection. “Right tree at the right place” is the key to get the benefits offered by the tree. Objectives have been formulated as follows (i) to investigate the selection of tree species at selected local councils (ii) to analyse the issues related to the selection of the tree species looking at the public perspectives. A mixed method approach was undertaken in the data collection. Future considerations of the tree species as street planting based on the findings can reduce problems thus increase the quality of urban life

The sources of stress amongst construction consultants in workplace environment / Nurul Afida Isnaini Janipha and Faridah Ismail.

Designers in Malaysia are beginning to feel the existence and growing of stress levels at the workplace due to high pressure and competitive working environment. Designer profession is to create inspire designs that sometimes lead to stress and affect their work performance. Moreover, stress can cause poor planning, lack of communications and interpersonal conflicts. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to identify the causes and effects of workplace stress amongst designers. Questionnaire survey was distributed among 500 designers. The respondents are from construction consultant companies in Klang Valley. The response rate of this paper was performed of about 38% of the samples. The outcome of this research show that they were generally enjoyed their work but sometimes feel stress due to poor planning and job demand, working surrounding and relationship among staff. This indicates that stress lead to bad designs and sometimes gives bad effects to the performance of the designers

Choosing Tree for Urban Fabric: Role of Landscape Architect

This study explored the role of landscape architect in choosing trees for urban fabric. Two objectives have been formulated (i) to examine the process in selecting tree species among landscape architects and (ii) to determine the relationship between process and environmental constraints in selecting tree species for urban fabric. The findings showed that certain criteria of the environmental constraints are positively correlated and have strong relationship with tree selection process. The role of landscape architect is pertinent in tree selection. The findings of this research will contribute to process improvement in selecting tree species by landscape architects in the future.

OHSAS 18001: A Pilot Study of Towards Sustainable Construction in Malaysia

AbstractOHSAS 18001 was proposed to promote an organisation manage occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks and further improved work operations. However, the positive efforts by the government of Malaysia to promote the implementation, usage and acceptance level of OHSAS 18001 are still not remarkable. Hence, the objectives of this paper are to determine the level of acceptance and to establish the best alternative practice in implementing OHSAS 18001. Questionnaire surveys were used as the research method. It is hoped that the implementation of OHSAS 18001 can stimulate the atmosphere of safety culture towards sustainable construction in the Malaysian construction industry

Impact of Islamic film on understanding of Islamic values and cultures for a multiracial society in Malaysia

Religious film plays an import role in educating the viewers, especially the youth. This study tries to compare the results of the experimental group (N=141) to the control group (N=150) on perception of, attitude on, and impact change from watching Islamic film. Specifically, it analyses the effect of an Islamic short film on youth behavioral change, according to race, religion, age and gender. The study uses a quantitative research design, with an experimental research method, using questionnaire as the research instrument for data collection. Results revealed that there were no differences between the experimental and the control group on the overall perception and the overall attitude, but the difference exists for the overall impact change. Surprisingly, the control group assessment on the impact of film, as a whole, is higher than the experimental group, after a short Islamic film was shown to the participants. For the control group, the Malay youth indicated a higher impact change assessment than the Chinese while the Muslim participants indicated a higher impact change assessment than the Christian, Hindus, Buddhist and Others. For the experimental group, the Malay youth gave a higher impact change assessment than either the Chinese or the Indian, with the Muslims superseded the Buddhists, and the least affected age group was the teenagers compared to the adolescents and the young adults. Therefore, the short film was making an impact on the participants, negatively. Thus, Social Learning Theory could be applied to learning of both positive and negative type of information. Suggestions to young film makers are posted so that they make religious films interesting enough, not as a threat, challenging youth existing knowledge on their own faith and on Islam; but as a motivation and reinforcement