BENCHMARKING THE PERFORMANCE OF MALAYSIA’S CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Malaysia’s construction industry particularly the provision of public infrastructure projects faces various debatable issues of the government’s belt-tightening budget, abandoned public projects, shoddy workmanship, over-budgeted project procurement and unresolved debts in public project provision. The current global economic downturns as well as the fluctuation in the oil prices worldwide have exacerbated the situation. Thus, in materialising the efficiency, accountability for performance, productivity and monetary policy set in confronting those controversial issues, several actions have been undertaken by Malaysian government including strengthening approval procedures, restructuring the implementation process, enhancing viability through risk distribution, reinforcing the institutional and regulatory framework as well as increasing Bumiputera participation in public infrastructure projects. Yet, these endeavours seem not to be the best solution in tackling those problems. Hence, there is a need of benchmarking the performance of Malaysia’s construction industry especially the provision of public infrastructure projects by clearly stipulating the standard regular evaluation and audition through a performance measurement technique known as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This paper provides a literature review of the philosophical, conceptual and functions of KPIs in improvising Malaysia’s construction industry performance. The literature will guide the development of KPIs for the assessment of public infrastructure project provision in Malaysia which forms the major part of the research undertaken.Benchmark, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Public Infrastructure Provision, Malaysia

THE PROVISION OF INFRASTRUCTURE VIA PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE

The infrastructure delivery worldwide has recently shifted to a new paradigm where the government as the public procurer begins to rely on the private sectors’ sources in providing assets and services at no cost to the government. This revolution ensues due to the government’s dilemma in handling various globalisation issues of the belt-tightening government’s budget, the escalated world oil prices, pressure in confronting abandoned public projects, intention in reducing government’s financial burdens as well as increased taxpayers’ demand on the quality of infrastructure assets and services. Thus, in facing those problems whilst maintaining the control over the infrastructure, an alternative procurement approach known as Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has been introduced. Nevertheless, history has proven that not all infrastructure assets or services are amenable to PFI, indeed experience in other jurisdictions has suggested that in some circumstances infrastructure provided via PFI can lead to poor public accountability, a reduction in competition as well as the development of monopolies. With the facts that different countries practise distinguished concepts and philosophies of PFI for their infrastructure provision based on the nature of their construction industry as well as different countries necessitate diverse types of infrastructure for their nation’s development of their, the urgency of determining the principles of infrastructure to be provided via PFI is significant. Therefore, this study investigates the features and characteristics of infrastructure that is suitable to be provided via PFI with the particular references to Malaysia’s construction industry as Malaysia’s version of PFI emerges in unique forms e.g. DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate), BOO (Build, Own, Operate), BOOST (Build, Own, Operate, Subsidise, Transfer) and BOL (Build, Operate, Lease). Although the Malaysia’s version of PFI is theoretically claimed as merely prompt in providing selected economic infrastructure for both physical assets and services, this study demonstrates that Malaysia’s PFI is also duly implemented for social infrastructures.Malaysia, Private Finance Initiative (PFI), Infrastructure.

4 coms and the roadblocks to the success of construction project delivery in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Project management involves an application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve project objectives and it plays important role in the successful completion of construction projects. The project is deemed as successful if it achieves the objectives according to their acceptance criteria, within an agreed timescale and budget. As projects are separate to business-as-usual activities, it requires people to come together temporarily to focus on specific project objectives thus some clients opt to employ project manager in ensuring the successful delivery of the project. This paper explores the role of 4COMs in ensuring the success of the project and highlight efforts made by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to embedded the 4 COMs in the undertaking of its massive campus development. Based on real projects, the issues in 4COM quadrants are identified and analyzed. Although comfort seems to be less of issue in UTM’s projects undertaking, the most common and crucial issues in project management are competence and commitment of consultants in performing their professional obligations. The inability to deliver the expected duties reasonably proved that competence and commitment should be one of the criteria for the selection of consultants in the future project. The combination of hard or technical skills and the human relation skills (competence and commitment) and the synergy from this significantly determine the success of the project

The implementation of construction cost index (CCI) in Malaysia

Cost performance is an important criterion in construction industry to determine a project success. In order to enhance the construction cost estimation and cost performance, Construction Cost Index (CCD is introduced. CCI serves as a business cycle measurement in budget preparation, cost modelling and cost forecasting in construction projects lifecycle. Although CCI has been introduced by Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) over a decade however the cost performances for construction projects in Malaysia are still remain unsatisfactory. Therefore, this study aims at examining the causal relationship of CCI implementation success factors to address the effectiveness of CCI in Malaysian construction industry. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), ANOVA and T-Test are conducted to examine the factors of implementation of CCI in relation to CCI components. It is found that economic condition and reliability and validity of CCI are the major success criteria in implementing CCI. Also, it is discovered that Malaysian construction industry is ready to adopt CCI to improve the cost estimating performance

Delay Mitigation in the Malaysian Housing Industry: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

The housing industry is one of the major contributors to the economy in Malaysia due to the constantly high housing demand. The housing demand has increased due to the rapid growth in population and urbanisation in the country. One of the major challenges in the housing industry is the late delivery of housing supply, which in some instances leads to sick and abandoned housing projects. Despite being extensively investigated, this delay is still a common phenomenon of the housing industry in Malaysia. As delay in delivery could result in a negative impact, there is a strong need to review the housing delay mitigation measures practised in Malaysia. This paper aims to evaluate the current delay mitigation measures and its main objective is to explore the relationship between the mitigation measures and delay in housing via a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. A questionnaire survey through an online survey tool was conducted across 13 states and three Federal Territories in Malaysia. The target respondents are the local authorities, developers, consultants (principal submitting persons) and contractors. The findings show that 17 mitigation criteria can be extracted using principal component analysis. These measures were categorised as predictive, preventive, organisational or corrective. This paper demonstrates that preventive measures are the most influential mitigation measures for housing delivery dela

Optical microbottle resonator with polyvinyl alcohol coating for sodium alginate concentration sensing

The research paper defined the effect of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) coating on optical microbottle resonator (MBR) for sodium alginate concentration sensor. The resonator made from silica fiber SMF28 used a technique known as “soften-and compress”. The MBRs size is based on the three parameters, which is bottle diameter (Db), stem diameter (Ds) and bottle length (Lb). The MBR was then coated with PVA and named MBR-PVA-A, MBR-PVA-B and MBR-PVA-C. The coated MBR-PVA was then coupled with microfiber for characterisation and able to have Q-factor >105 for all conditions. The MBR-PVAs were then used for the sodium alginate sensor with liquid concentrations ranging from 1% to 6%. The MBR-PVAs performance is ultimately excellent, where the results are based on transmitted power and wavelength shift analysis. The MBR-PVAs are promising as sodium alginate concentration sensors by the sensitivity, linearity, stability, and repeatability performance

Effect of HEC/PVDF coating on glass substrate for formaldehyde concentration sensing

This paper has reported demonstration of simple and low cost formaldehyde sensor utilizing Hydroxyethyl cellulose/Polyvinylidene fluoride (HEC/PVDF) coated glass substrate. It was integrated with Arduino microcontroller for data acquisition of the variation of the transmitted light during the sensing. The formaldehyde detection is based on the change in refractive index (RI) of the HEC/PVDF as a sensitive material which modulate the output light intensity when the concentration level of the formaldehyde increases. A significant response towards formaldehyde concentrations level was observed with the output voltage reduced linearly from 1.5V to 0.8V. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor improves by a factor of 1.09 as compared to uncoated glass substrate. It also performed better in term of stability, response time and hysteresis. The proposed sensor evades the used of costly optical sensor fabrication and manufacturing process which are more practical for large production while maintaining a good sensing performances. Based on the experiment results, the proposed approach has exhibited convincing potential as a formaldehyde sensor

The success factors of design and build procrement method: a literature visit

Studies on project procurement techniques are normally focus on the ability of the techniques to manage risk in projects undertaking. The shifting from traditional to innovative procurement approach is resulted from the complexity of project nowadays. Design and Build which is on one the innovative techniques, has gained popularity from the time and cost saving reputation. The basic concept of Design and Build require the project to be contracted to a single organization that would be responsible for design, procurement, engineering and commissioning. This paper aims to theoretically explore and reveal the effectiveness of Design and Build in procuring the project. The paper shows that characteristics of Design and Build that make it different from other procurement system nested in the advantages of offering single point responsibility, fixed time and money, communication and risk allocation. Proper exploitation of these characteristics may lead to the success of the system

The provision of infrastructure via private finance initiative

The infrastructure delivery worldwide has recently shifted to a new paradigm where the government as the public procurer begins to rely on the private sectors’ sources in providing assets and services at no cost to the government. This revolution ensues due to the government’s dilemma in handling various globalisation issues of the belt-tightening government’s budget, the escalated world oil prices, pressure in confronting abandoned public projects, intention in reducing government’s financial burdens as well as increased taxpayers’ demand on the quality of infrastructure assets and services. Thus, in facing those problems whilst maintaining the control over the infrastructure, an alternative procurement approach known as Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has been introduced. Nevertheless, history has proven that not all infrastructure assets or services are amenable to PFI, indeed experience in other jurisdictions has suggested that in some circumstances infrastructure provided via PFI can lead to poor public accountability, a reduction in competition as well as the development of monopolies. With the facts that different countries practise distinguished concepts and philosophies of PFI for their infrastructure provision based on the nature of their construction industry as well as different countries necessitate diverse types of infrastructure for their nation’s development of their, the urgency of determining the principles of infrastructure to be provided via PFI is significant. Therefore, this study investigates the features and characteristics of infrastructure that is suitable to be provided via PFI with the particular references to Malaysia’s construction industry as Malaysia’s version of PFI emerges in unique forms e.g. DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate), BOO (Build, Own, Operate), BOOST (Build, Own, Operate, Subsidise, Transfer) and BOL (Build, Operate, Lease). Although the Malaysia’s version of PFI is theoretically claimed as merely prompt in providing selected economic infrastructure for both physical assets and services, this study demonstrates that Malaysia’s PFI is also duly implemented for social infrastructure

Multiple regressions in analysing house price variations

An application of rigorous statistical analysis in aiding investment decision making gains momentum in the United States of America as well as the United Kingdom. Nonetheless in Malaysia the responses from the local academician are rather slow and the rate is even slower as far as the practitioners are concern. This paper illustrates how Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) and its extension, Hedonic Regression Analysis been used in explaining price variation for selected houses in Malaysia. Each attribute that theoretically identified as price determinant is priced and the perceived contribution of each is explicitly shown. The paper demonstrates how the statistical analysis is capable of analyzing property investment by considering multiple determinants. The consideration of various characteristics which is more rigorous enables better investment decision making