The global adoption of Industralised Building System (IBS) : lessons learned

Industrialised Building Systems (IBS) is typically used interchangeably with other terms such as prefabrication, offsite manufacturing, offsite construction, and modern method of construction (MMC), industrialised building and industrialised construction. Nevertheless, the term modern method of construction (MMC) has been used to collectively describe both offsite-based construction technologies and innovative onsite technologies in the United Kingdom. It is evident that there exist a wide range of contextual issues which stems from the definition of these terminologies. However, lack of previous research has explored the relationship between these terminologies. Therefore, this paper emphasises the contrasting concepts of IBS and MMC, and concludes that ill-defining the MMC-IBS terms leads to misunderstanding, uncertainty and prejudice of the IBS concept and its benefits besides the adoption of IBS in global, which will be detrimental to efforts promoting the use of IBS in the construction industry

Industrialized building systems: Strategic outlook for manufactured construction in Malaysia

The Malaysian construction industry (CI) orchestrates an essential role in generating wealth for the nation and facilitates the development of the social and economic well-being of the country. A myriad of definitions and classifications, such as off-site construction (OSC), modern method of construction (MMC), offsite manufacturing (OSM), off-site production (OSP), preassembly, and prefabrication, are worth examination. The term and classification were often misinterpreted as a system limited only for construction of buildings. In response to the CIMP, championed by CIDB, the industry has been urged to use innovative construction techniques, methods, and technologies to shift from traditional practices to IBS construction. The contractors often moan about the lack of incentives in implementing IBS for the short and long term; private organizations will require quick wins to convince top management and operational staff and to incorporate an organizational IBS strategy in the long term

Fragmentation issue in Malaysian industrialised building system (IBS) projects

As a developing country, Malaysian is currently driving for implementing a new or modern construction method, the Industrialised Building System (IBS), as an alternative towards enhancing construction performance. Currently, most of the IBS project developments in Malaysia are still conducted by using the traditional construction process approach. This traditional construction process has been widely criticised for its fragmented approach to project delivery and its failure to form effective teams thus created a number of issues such as reworks, time delay, rising costs, lack of communication and coordination, and wastages. This paper through literature review aims to highlight this fragmentation issue and clarify how far it affects the process of IBS implementation. Suggestions on how an integrated approach in design and construction in order to minimise the fragmentation gaps will be concluded

An industrial report on the Malaysian building information modelling (BIM) taskforce : issues and recommendations

The government of Malaysia has a vision to become a fully developed country by the year 2020, and the construction industry has a significant role to play in assisting the government to achieve this vision. In order to become an advanced country, the construction players in Malaysia need to be globally competitive, and encouraging innovation in the industry is a key aspect of this is and provides the rationale for the roundtable discussion workshop this paper describes. The main objectives of this roundtable discussion were to establish the Building Information Modelling (BIM) task force, provide a platform for industry experts to discuss BIM issues, share knowledge and information and work collaboratively, and to provide recommendations for policy makers for further enhancements of the construction industry. The exploratory roundtable discussion was used as the research method. This roundtable discussion demonstrated the lack of understanding of BIM by the construction industry in Malaysia and the importance of establishing a BIM task force to promote BIM and National BIM Guidelines in Malaysia. This paper also presents the draft organisational chart for the BIM Taskforce, concludes that Industrial Building System (IBS) should provide one of the directions for this task force to implement BIM and that the next step is to develop a case study to increase knowledge sharing activities amongst practitioners and academics