Automata and languages have been studied in the context of different lattice structures by several authors. This paper is toward the categorical study of deterministic lattice-valued (L-valued) fuzzy automata and deterministic quantale-valued (Q-valued)

fuzzy automata. The existence of initial and final objects in the subcategory of category of deterministic lattice-valued fuzzy automata is shown. We also show that there is an adjunction between the category of deterministic lattice-valued and quantale-valued

fuzzy automata

Dubey, M. K.

Kavikumar, J.

Tiwari, S. P.

English

UTHM Institutional Repository

On the categories of L-Valued and Q-Valued

6 deterministic fuzzy automata

Automata and languages have been studied in the context of different lattice structures by several authors. This paper is toward the categorical study of deterministic lattice-valued (L-valued) fuzzy automata and deterministic quantale-valued (Q-valued)

26 fuzzy automata. The existence of initial and final objects in the subcategory of category of deterministic lattice-valued fuzzy automata is shown. We also show that there is an adjunction between the category of deterministic lattice-valued and quantale-valued

fuzzy automata

Significant Risk Factors in Construction Projects: Contractor’s Perception  Nur Alkaf Abd Karim, Ismail Abd. Rahman         Aftab Hameed Memmon, Nurhidayah Jamil, Faculty of Civil & Environmental Engineering University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia Batu Pahat, Johor Email: ell_lika@yahoo.com Ade Asmi Abd. Azis Department of Civil Engineering Universitas Bakrie Jakarta, Indonesia     Abstract— Risk plays an important role in the success of construction project. In managing risk, identification of risk factors is very critical. Hence, this study focused on the investigation of risk factors from contractors’ perspective as the contractors are key players in the success of a project. The scope of this study was limited to Batu Pahat and Muar districts only. Data were gathered using structured questionnaire survey from contractors registered with Pusat Khidmat Kontraktor (PKK). Investigations on the risk factor involved 25 common risk factors classified in five categories, which were identified through literature works. Statistical methods were used to analyse the data. Results found that the five most important risk factors in construction project are shortage of material, late deliveries of material, insufficient technology, poor quality of workmanship, and cash flow difficulties. These significant factors are from two major categories of construction and finance. The findings of this study would assist contractors in dealing with risks encountered in construction projects. Keywords- Risk Factors; Risk Management; Contractor, Construction I.  INTRODUCTION Construction industry is usually more risky as compared to other business activity because of the complexity in coordinating various activities. Furthermore, each project is unique and often incorporated with new techniques and procedures. The core element of project success is to meet the time, cost, and quality as targeted. In order to achieve these targets, risk may appear in many ways and could result in time overrun, budget overrun, financial losses, loss of life, environmental damage, and many more failures. Therefore, project can be positively success by considering the risks where it normally tends to give positive and negative effect on the project [1].  In order to manage a project, risk management must be used as one of the essential parts in project management. The purpose of risk management is to add value to project delivery and to improve efficiency during practice [2]. Thus, risk management can be defined as a coordinated set of activities and methods used to control risks [3]. In order to achieve the objectives of a project, a proper risk management is necessary. Due to this, the foremost step is to identify risk factors affecting the risk management. Furthermore, as known in construction projects, the contractors are the major role players in performing construction works and are directly involved in physical activities of the project. They are required to control the risks that occur during the construction works to ensure the successful delivery of the projects [4]. Hence, this study focused on investigating risk factors from the perspectives of the contractors involved in construction projects within Batu Pahat and Muar districts.    II. RELATED RSEARCH Risk is one of the major considerations in managing a project and also the contributor for project success. In Malaysian construction industry, risk management is not well-practised due to the lack on risk management knowledge [5]. Thus, it is important to understand risk management knowledge amongst the construction practitioners in order for them to practise the risk management in handling their projects [6].  A. Risk Management Procedure  Risk management is systematic approach involving nine steps to be followed in order to manage the risk [7] as shown in Figure 1. First step in risk management is making risk management strategy. This must be adopted at the time of project planning stage to ensure the effective risk management throughout the project lifecycle. The second step is identifying the risks associated with the project. This can be achieved using several methods such as brainstorming, prompt list, checklist, work breakdown structure, Delphi technique, or by asking expert [8]. Third step is assessing the risk to evaluate the effects of each risk on the project. It can be evaluated based on the possibility of risk occurrence and severity of its impact [8] by developing risk matrix. Fifth step is negotiating each risk amongst the parties involved in risk management process. It normally takes place after signing the contract. This is the most important step as it reflects the risk management assessment updates continuously [7] [8]. 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,Sabah, Malaysia978-1-4673-4616-0/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 351 Figure 1. Risk management procedure, adapted from [7]   After updating the risk, next step is to allocate the risk to the party that is most competent and have expertise in handling the risk [7]. Once the risk has been allocated, next step is to treat it by several ways such as avoid, reduce, share, transfer, deference, mitigate, contingence, insurance or accept the risk. The final step in risk management procedure is monitoring and controlling the risk through a risk register. This can be done by listing the details associated with risk such as type of risk, its probability of occurrences, its impact on project, possible treatment. All the risk must be consistently monitored and been assessed and amended continuously [8]. B. Identifying Risk Factor Several researchers have identified risk factors in construction projects. In a study Hamimah [14] identified a total of 25 risk factors classified in three groups internal risk factor, project risk factors and external risk factor. She also [13] mentioned that the most significant risk occurred in design and built include time and cost overrun. The major factors responsible for these risks are employer or government delay, lack of information from the employer, difficulty of following instructions, conflict of interest and variation to changes. Ref [10] pointed out that construction projects are attributed to financial, technical, politics, force majeure and social risks which may influence the project profit. Hence, for this study, extensive literature review was carried out to identify common risk factor that may occur in construction projects. This resulted in identifying a total of 25 factors categorized in five groups as (1) Construction (2) Politics and contract provision (3) Financial (4) Design and (5) Environmental as follows as shows in Table I.  Construction group includes risk factors that occur due to faulty construction techniques, managerial issue, cost escalation, and delay in construction project. Politics and contract provision risk are the risk factors that occur due to legal changes and unsupportive government policies. In terms of finance, risk factors occur due to inadequate hedging of revenue streams and financing costs. In design risk category, the risk factors occur due to faulty from technical aspect and late amendment, while risk factors occurring due to the lack of enforcement are categorised as environmental risks. TABLE I.  RISK FACTORS ATTRIBUTE FROM PREVIOUS STUDY Risk Category Risk factor Construction Land acquisition Shortage of equipment Shortage of material Late deliveries of material Poor quality of workmanship Site safety Insolvency of subcontractors Inadequate planning Weather Insolvency of suppliers Politics & Contract Provision Change in law and regulation Delay in project approval and permit Inconsistencies in government policies Excessive contract variation Poor supervision Bureaucracy Compliance with Government  Finance Delay in payment for claim Cash flow difficulties  Lack of financial resources Design Improper design Change of scope Environmental Pollution Ecological damage Compliance with law and regulation for environment issue III. DATA COLLCTION AND ANALYSIS Data collection was carried out using questionnaire survey to understand the perception of the practitioners to the risk factors. The target respondents were the contractor registered with Pusat Khidmat Kontraktor (PKK). Five-point Likert scale was adapted to identify the significance of risk factors as follows: 1-Not Significant, 2-slightly significant, 3-Moderate, 4-Very significant, and 5-Extremely significant.    The data gathered from the survey were analysed statistically using Relative Important Index (RII) to determine the relative significance and ranking of risk factor. The same approach has been used by many researchers to analyse the data collected from questionnaire survey [9].  RII is calculated with following expression [10]:                 Relative Important index (RII) =   where: a = constant expressing the weight assigned to each responses, n = frequency of each response, N = total number of responses, 5 = the highest weight. 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,Sabah, Malaysia352IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION A. Demographic Result A total of 50 questionnaire sets were distributed, of which 35 valid responses with a rate of 70% were received back. The respondents were registered in different classes of contractors with PKK as summarised in Figure 2.  Figure 2.  Rate of respondent based on class of contractor (Class A-F) Figure 2 indicates that most of the respondents were class A and class F contractors (26% each). Other than that, 20% of the contractors were registered as class D contractors, 14% contractors were class E contractors, 8% were class C contractors, and 6% were class B contractors. As shown in Figure 3, the respondents had various lengths of years of experience in handling various types of projects.      Figure 3.  Rate of respondent based on contractor experience Figure 3 shows that majority (57%) of the respondent had working experience of 5 to 10 years in construction industry while 23% of the respondents had working experience of 11 to 15 years and 20% of the respondents had working experience of more than 15 years. B. Realibility Test Cronbach’s alpha, α coefficient of reliability test was used to determine the consistency of the data obtained. It was calculated using SPSS and the result obtained was 0.916. This value indicates that the data were highly reliable compared to cut-off value of 0.7 given by [11], [12], and [13]. C. Ranking Study of Risk Factor it can be seen that the five most important risk factors in construction project are shortage of material, late deliveries of material, insufficient technology, poor quality of workmanship, and cash flow difficulties. These significant factors are from two groups i.e. construction and finance. Amongst these, shortage of material and late deliveries of material are the two most dominant  TABLE II.  RANKING OF RISK FACTOR Risk Factor RII Rank Group Shortage of material 0.735 1 Construction Late deliveries of material 0.733 2 Construction Shortage of equipment 0.721 3 Construction Poor quality of workmanship 0.720 4 Construction Cash flow difficulties  0.712 5 Finance Insolvency of subcontractors 0.700 6 Construction Inadequate planning 0.700 6 Construction Insolvency of suppliers 0.691 7 Construction Change in law and regulation 0.688 8 Politics & Contract provision Bureaucracy 0.688 8 Politics & Contract provision Lack of financial resource 0.682 9 Finance Site safety 0.674 10 Construction Delay in payment for claim 0.671 11 Finance Change scope of work 0.671 11 Design Poor supervision 0.657 12 Politics & Contract provision Weather 0.647 13 Construction Compliance with government 0.629 14 Politics & Contract provision Delay in project approval and permits 0.624 15 Politics & Contract provision Land acquisition 0.618 16 Construction Inconsistencies in government policies  0.612 17 Politics & Contract provision Pollution 0.606 18 Environmental Excessive contract variation 0.594 19 Politics & Contract provision Ecological damage 0.589 20 Environmental Compliance with law and regulation for environment issue 0.577 21 Environmental Improper design 0.463 22 Design  factors that are placed at rank 1 and 2, respectively. These results are true as materials are very important component in construction project, which attribute 70% of the total value of project [14]. Therefore, any problems related to construction materials would significantly affect the project [14]. Thus, contractors or suppliers must take responsibility to ensure the adequate availability of the materials as scheduled.   Shortage of equipments is another major risk factor that has significant impact on project productivity. This can be resulted from poor planning and lack of experience of contractors in handling the projects. Usually, contractors handle more than one project at one time and they switch the equipment from one project to another. This would also affect the availability of equipments on particular project.  The fourth ranked risk factor is poor quality of workmanship. Ref [15] mentioned that poor quality workmanship leads to project failure.   2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,Sabah, Malaysia353Cash flow difficulties in finance group are regarded as the fifth most critical risk factor. This can affect the procurement of material thus causing delay in the completion of project within due time. As a recommendation, contractors are urged to have enough cash to minimise financial problems [14] D. Significant Risk Category As shown in Table III, five categories of risk factors considered in this study were analysed to determine the most significant category.  TABLE III.  RANKING OF RISK CATEGORY Risk Category Mean Rank Construction 0.714 1 Politic & Contract Provision 0.713 2 Design 0.712 3 Finance 0.706 4 Environment 0.583 5  Table III shows that the most significant category of risk factors is “Construction”. This finding is similar to the results of [4].   V. CONCLUSION This study has shown that risk factors are the critical component in achieving project objectives. The significant risk-contributing factors found are shortage of material, late deliveries of material, insufficient technology, poor quality of workmanship, and cash flow difficulties. These significant factors are from two major categories i.e., construction and finance. To minimise the chances of failure of the construction projects, the significant risk factors as revealed in this study should be properly handled in managing the risks. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank to Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia and the respondents involved in this study. REFERENCES [1] B. M. Ayyub, Risk Analysis in engineering and Economic. Chapman & Hall/CCRC, 2003.pp.35. [2] G. D. Wood and R. C. T. Ellis, “Risk management practices of leading UK cost consultants,” Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 254–262, 2003. [3] “ISO 31000 2009 Risk Management Principles and Guidelines.” 2009. [4] W. Tang, M. Qiang, and C. Duffield, “Risk management in the Chinese construction industry,” Journal of Construction Engineering and management, no. May 2012, pp. 944–956, 2007. [5] N. M. Yusuwan, H. Adnan, and A. F. Omar, “Clients ’ Perspectives of Risk Management Practice in Malaysian Construction Industry,” 2008. [6] A. Zaini, R. Takim, and I. Endut, “Contractors’ strategic approaches to risk assessment techniques at project planning stage,” IEEE Symposium on Business, Engineering and Industrial Applications (ISBEIA), Langkawi, Malaysia. pp. 320–325, 2011. [7] Z. R. B. Li, A. Akintoye, “Bayesian Technique Framework for allocating demand risk between the public and private sector in PPP project,” IEEE, 2009. [8] A. Lester, Project Management Planning and Control, Fifth. Elsevier Ltd, 2007. pp. 65-72. [9] L. Le-Hoai, Y. D. Lee, and J. Y. Lee, “Delay and cost overruns in Vietnam large construction projects: A comparison with other selected countries,” KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 367–377, Nov. 2008. [10] A. D. Ibrahim, A. D. F. Price, A. R. J. Dainty, C. Engineering, A. Road, and E. Adibrahimlboroacuk, “The analysis and allocation of risks in public private partnerships in infrastructure projects in Nigeria,” vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 149–163, 2006. [11] S.-F. O. Jyh-Bin Yang, “Using structural equation modeling to analyze relationships among key causes of delay in construction,” Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 321 – 333, 2008. [12] D. G. and P. Mallery, SPSS for Windows step by step: A simple guide and reference, 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon., 2003. [13] P. S. P. W. and S. O. Cheung, “No Structural Equation Model of Trust and Partnering Success,” Journal of Management in Engineering, vol. Vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 70 – 80, 2005. [14] I. Enshassi, A., Lisk, R., Sawalhi, I., & Radwan, “Contributors to construction delays in Palestine,” The Journal of American Institute of Constructors, vol. 27(2), pp. 45–53, 2003. [15] J. Iwaro, “The Effects of ISO Certification on Organization Workmanship Performance,” no. 1999, 2012.   2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,Sabah, Malaysia354

On the categories of L-Valued and Q-Valued 6 deterministic fuzzy automata

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UTHM Institutional Repository

UTHM Institutional Repository