Challenges for Local Contractors to Compete with Other Local and Foreign Contractors in the Malaysian Construction Industry

Despite the benefits, globalisation and liberalisation impose challenges to local contractors. Main problem statement: The local contractors’ lack of competitive advantages provides opportunities to their competitors, limiting chances to secure local projects. This study aims to appraise local contractors’ competitiveness with the objective to assess the challenges to compete in the globalisation and liberalisation. Data from the questionnaire surveys on 60 Malaysian international contractors were analysed using the RASCH model. Three challenges assessed are: unstable economic situation, stiff local competition, and building reputation difficulties. The findings are aligned with the 2021-2025 Strategic Plan to encourage local contractors to venture overseas. Keywords: Challenges, Local contractors, Foreign contractors, Malaysian Construction Industry, Globalisation, Liberalisation eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-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.v6iSI4.290

Towards a sustainable supply of affordable housing with prefabrication technology : an overview

The involvement of private sector in offering affordable housing price for the public is very crucial in the long run. It is relevant as the developing country like Malaysia is experiencing the arising of population and urbanisation process. Therefore, a well-established method such as the approach of utilising the prefabrication technology must be strategised by the stakeholders albeit many issues regarding the practice have been debated in the construction and real estate industry. Thus, this literature study is conducted to explore the arising issues in prefabrication technology so that the strategies can be well adapted by all the parties involved to ensure the sustainable supply of the affordable houses. For the purpose of this study, a systematic literature review was reviewed based on 60 papers published between the years of 2003-2017. The analysis found that the prefabrication technology issues was focus on five main themes: assemble, workmanship, financial, logistic and project information system. Hence the issued could be further strategised by various stakeholder and drive by three main components which are people, process and technology. The findings provide sensible technologies utilisation related to the supply chain systems in the development of affordable houses. All in all, although there were some issues in the practice of prefabrication technology, the more holistic driver approach is needed from all parties towards the sustainable supply of affordable housing with prefabrication technology

Spatial pattern of affordability and overhang in Selangor

The provision of affordable housing is being developed rapidly whilst the mismatch between demand and supply in the residential market was reported as a crisis causing an increased in the overhang of residential accommodation. To date, no detailed analysis in the form of a spatial pattern for affordable housing has been studied to illustrate the crisis. Thus, this paper aims to analyse patterns for affordable house prices by using a spatial model in Selangor state with further analysis of overhang units in the Selangor district. Secondary data were obtained from various sources and the spatial model was formed and generated to examine the spatial patterns within the study area, which is in Selangor. Although previous research has found that the median household income group intended to purchase a type of landed house, for example terraced houses, the offered prices in the property market were not affordable to this particular group. Further analysis of residential overhang found that Gombak district has a high density of land use zoned for housing supply whilst facing the increased overhang. The findings of this research may guide the stakeholders on proper planning for near future of the affordable housing development with suitable type of residential to meet the residential market segmentation and demand

The significance of professional, personal and business networks to academic entrepreneurs.

The degree of informational support academic scientists acquired from social network is associated with greater perceived feasibility that may influence their involvement in the research commercialization. Social capital has been commonly assessed by measuring the number of direct contacts from business and industry networks as well as the frequency of establishing new contacts. These approaches, however, have not adequately explained how social capital is beneficial to their entrepreneurial endeavor. This paper attempts to validate social capital as a formative construct using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to explore the relative importance of personal, professional and business networks to academic entrepreneurs in their technology transfer pursuit. A sample of 115 academic entrepreneurs of a Malaysia public research university was surveyed. The analyses of formative measurement model to evaluate construct validity, collinearity and significance of indicators revealed that scientists’ personal network is the most important social resource that facilitate and encourage them in the technology transfer pursuit, followed with business partners and potential investors. Although scientists have a large professional network through their attendance to conference, workshops and seminars, however, these platforms are often themed to focus more on sharing scientific knowledge rather than on academic entrepreneurship

Local Contractors' Awareness on Competitiveness towards Liberalisation and Globalisation in the Malaysian Construction Industry

Globalisation gives the opportunity to contractors from a particular country to venture into various countries around the globe as the construction market is unlimitedly open. Due to this globalisation, the government has signed free trade agreements (FTA) as the result of the liberalisation process. Globalisation and liberalisation do not only provide opportunities and benefts to the local construction market, but also give challenges to local contractors in terms of competition with other local and foreign contractors. Yet, a question arises whether the local contractors in particular are aware with the competitive challenges they are facing against the foreign contractors or even amongst the local contractors themselves. This is because there are limited studies conducted which seek to identify the current levels of awareness on competitiveness among local contractors within the Malaysian construction industry. Hence, this paper emerges with the objectives of (1) identifying the current level of awareness of local contractors on competitiveness and (2) investigating the most important attributes of awareness of local contractors in the Malaysian construction industry. Questionnaire surveys were conducted on local Malaysian contractors involving 61 organisations from 112 venturing into overseas market. Data were analysed via Rasch analysis consisting of fve method analysis which are the reliability and validity analysis, organisation misft analysis, unidimensionality analysis, item misft analysis and item measure order analysis. Findings from this paper reveal that most of the contractors have a moderate level of awareness on the competitiveness in the Malaysian construction industry. The fndings of this study have been concluded as the local contractors acknowledge their competitors' strength and weaknesses when bidding for new projects and also aim to improve their competitiveness in competing with other local contractors locally. Recognition of this paper on the awareness of the importance of competitiveness by various local contractors in the Malaysian construction industry is in line with the Construction Industry Transformation Plan (CITP) 2016–2020 in addressing the Internationalisation Thrust with the aim to increase competitiveness of the domestic market, especially with the presence of foreign players

Millennium Fleas Production Sdn. Bhd. / Siti Eliana Azyze Ezami Azyze ... [et al.]

Millennium Fleas Production Sdn Bhd is a company that caters in designing, be it the print or electronic media. In this globalisation era, ICT play a major role in the business sector. The emergence of K-Economy had calls for professional workers to contribute in the growth of the country. We see that there is need for the K-Economy business to spread their wings and we have the solutio

Engineering conventional and engineering technology programs in Malaysian universities

One of the goals of the education system in Malaysia is to ensure the development of highly educated, highly skilled and strongly motivated human resources to fulfill the needs of the nation and the requirements of the industry as well as to support the country's aspiration to be an industrialized nation. Thus, several government-funded universities in Malaysia are required to offer engineering technology programs. These universities are known as Malaysian Technical Universities Network (MTUN), comprising Universiti Teknikal Melaka, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn and Universiti Malaysia Perlis with a mission to educate and train highly skilled manpower that can contribute to the world class industrial nation. The purpose of engineering technology programs is to complement existing engineering conventional programs. This study reports the differences between engineering conventional programs and engineering technology programs in terms of curriculum design and delivery and assessment of student learning. This knowledge is important as it will differentiate the job scope of the graduates from both programs. The data collection method in this study was qualitative method involving document analysis and focus group interviews. The documents analyzed were Malaysian Qualifications Agency Program Standards for Engineering and Engineering Technology and Malaysian Engineering Program Accreditation Manual. The teaching staffs from MTUN were interviewed for data triangulation. The results indicate that there exist differences in the curriculum design and delivery and assessment of student learning for both programs

Ultimate load prediction for timber beam - elasto-plastic theory approach

Timber is one of engineering materials that behaves elasto-plastic property. However, the number of research that considers the elasto-plastic property of timber to analyse or to predict ultimate load of timber beam is limited. The application of perfectly elasto-plastic property for timber is proposed to predict the ultimate strength of solid and glulam beams. Three yield criteria for timber are introduced, i.e. yield criterion I, II and III. All criteria are developed based on orthotropic and microstructure property of timber. The existing criteria proposed by Tsai-Wu and Hill are also considered. These criteria were used to develop the theoretical model in order to predict the ultimate load of timber beams (solid and glulam). The ultimate loads predicted by perfectly elasto-plastic model (using yield criterion III) are in close agreement with experimental results. The predicted load-deflection curves using perfectly elasto-plastic model (using yield criterion III) is found to be approaching experimental load-deflection curves for most beams. Therefore this shows that the timber can be idealised as a perfectly elasto-plastic material. It can be concluded that the yield criterion III is the best criterion for solid and glulam timber beam. This new yield criterion is significant for development of theoretical model to predict ultimate load for timber beam

An improvement of tresca’s yield criterion for the analysis of timber structure

Tresca’s criterion was develop by Tresca in 1868 by considering the material is isotropic or the material behaves equal shear strength in different direction [1]. It is a well-known yield criterion and widely used to analyse isotropic material. This criterion assumed that the material is yielding under shear stress. The yielding of material occurred when shear stresses in any direction in the material approach shear strength or a critical value. This criterion is widely used to analyse soil structure, metal etc. However, the application of Tresca's criterion to analyse timber structure is found very limite

Ke arah mewujudkan sebuah universiti penyelidikan - satu cabaran

Cabaran globalisasi dan k-ekonomi memerlukan negara mempunyai lebih ramai sumber tenaga manusia yang kreatif dan inovatif sehingga mampu menghasilkan teknologi dan produk baru yang lebih kompetitif serta mampu bersaing di pasaran global. Bagi membantu negara menghadapi cabaran tersebut, universiti yang secara tradisinya merupakan universiti pengajaran lebih menumpukan kepada aktiviti pengajaran sedangkan universiti penyelidikan memberi penekanan kepada aktiviti penyelidikan dan pembangunan disamping pengajaran. Sebenarnya universiti penyelidikan telah lama wujud di negara-negara maju seperti Amerika Syarikat, United Kingdom dan Jepun. Antaranya ialah Massachusett Insititute of Technology (MIT) di Amerika Syarikat, University of Tokyo di Jepun dan University of Cambridge di United Kingdom. Oleh itu universiti penyelidikan mesti mempunyai kekuatan yang menonjol dalam penyelidikan sebagai bisnes teras disamping pengajaran. Fokus pengajaran di universiti penyelidikan mesti menjurus ke arah melahirkan graduan yang lebih kreatif, inovatif dan bersedia meneruskan kerjaya sebagai penyelidik yang cemerlang. Lebih tepat lagi, universiti penyelidikan mesti mempunyai lebih 50% aktiviti penyelidikan berbanding 40% pengajaran dan 10% aktiviti lain. Oleh yang demikian, kecemerlangan universiti penyelidikan harus dilihat dari segi kepakaran dan reputasi staf akademiknya disamping hasil penyelidikan yang berkualiti. Kecemerlangan universiti pengajaran pula diukur dari segi bilangan pelajar, kualiti graduan dan bilangan program akademik yang ditawarkan. Untuk mencapai status universiti penyelidikan, sesebuah universiti perlu melakukan perubahan terhadap semua aspek yang berkaitan dengan aktivitinya, termasuklah kurikulum program akademik, kewangan dan pengurusannya, program pembangunan sumber manusia, kemudahan dan struktur organisasi. Untuk mencapai matlamat anjakan paradigma ini, universiti perlu melakukan beberapa strategi pelaksanaan termasuklah perkongsian visi, perubahan budaya kerja, agihan semula beban tugas staf, program akademik dan penyelidikan, penyediaan kemudahan and infrastruktur, pembangunan sumber manusia, penyediaan dana penyelidikan dan pembangunan, dan pemantapan struktur organisasi, terutamanya hubungan antara fakulti dengan pusat kecemerlangan. Aktiviti fakulti lebih menumpukan kepada pengajaran sedangkan pusat kecemerlangan pula lebih tertumpu kepada penyelidikan dan pembangunan. Hubungan fakulti dan pusat kecemerlangan hendaklah berdasarkan senergi perkongsian bijak supaya universiti penyelidikan yang diwujudkan mampu memenuhi keperluan negara dalam menyahut cabaran abad ke-21