Aftab Hameed Memon

Issues on construction waste: The need for sustainable waste management

Construction wastes have become a pressing issue in many developing countries and have adverse effects on environment, economy and social aspects. Illegal dumping is a common issue created from the physical construction waste and besides that non physical waste like cost and time overruns are not properly addressed among the construction players. This paper explores the impacts of construction on sustainable construction and contributing causes which will help the practitioners to formulate ways in avoiding or reducing the waste. It also highlights the sustainable approach in managing the construction waste as practice.

Time and cost performance of costruction projects in southern and cenrtal regions of penisular Malaysia

Time and cost performance is the fundamental criteria for success of any project. Unfortunately construction industry in Malaysia has been regarded as industry facing poor performance leading to failure in achieving effective time and cost performance. As a consequence most of the projects face huge amount of time and cost overrun. This study assessed the time and cost performance of construction projects in Malaysia using structured questionnaire survey. The findings of study revealed that 92% of construction projects were overrun and only 8% of project could achieve completion within contract duration. The amount of time overrun was in between 5–10% as agreed by respondents. In terms of cost performance only 11% of respondents mentioned that normally their projects are finished within the budgeted cost while 89% of respondents agreed that their projects were facing the problem of cost overrun with average overrun at 5–10% of contract price. The major contributors of this poor performance include design and documentation issues, financial resource management and project management and contract administration issues. Further, qualitative study was carried out using semi-structured interviews with the experience personnel involving in managing construction project which resulted in developing 13 mitigation measure to improve time performance and 15 mitigation measure to improve cost performance in construction project. This study will help the practitioners to implement the mitigation measure at planning stage in order to achieve successful construction projects.

SEM-PLS Analysis of Inhibiting Factors of Cost Performance for Large Construction Projects in Malaysia: Perspective of Clients and Consultants

This study uncovered inhibiting factors to cost performance in large construction projects of Malaysia. Questionnaire survey was conducted among clients and consultants involved in large construction projects. In the questionnaire, a total of 35 inhibiting factors grouped in 7 categories were presented to the respondents for rating significant level of each factor. A total of 300 questionnaire forms were distributed. Only 144 completed sets were received and analysed using advanced multivariate statistical software of Structural Equation Modelling (SmartPLS v2). The analysis involved three iteration processes where several of the factors were deleted in order to make the model acceptable. The result of the analysis found that R 2 value of the model is 0.422 which indicates that the developed model has a substantial impact on cost performance. Based on the final form of the model, contractors site management category is the most prominent in exhibiting effect on cost performance of large construction projects. This finding is validated using advanced techniques of power analysis. This vigorous multivariate analysis has explicitly found the significant category which consists of several causative factors to poor cost performance in large construction projects. This will benefit all parties involved in construction projects for controlling cost overrun.

Challenges faced by construction industry in accomplishing sustainablity goals

Rapid growth of construction projects have benefited mankind by providing social requirement like infrastructure, building etc as well contributing significantly in economic growth of country. At the same time is contributing significantly in generating high amount of construction waste, consuming resource excessively, and adverse impacts to environment, facing schedule delay and using excessive budget. These challenges has put the practitioners to adopt sustainable development principles in construction as traditional design and construction focuses on cost, time and quality only and pay very little attention on environmental impacts. On the contrary Sustainable construction merges sound environmentally responsible practices into one discipline that looks at the environmental, economic and social effects of a building or building project as a whole. Sustainable construction benefits by consuming fewer resources in construction and operation, reduce negative impacts on environment, minimize construction waste, and reduce planning risk, extended building life and viability.

Cost management of large construction projects in South Malaysia

Achieving project completion within the estimated cost is fundamental criteria for success of any project. Hence cost management and control is very important consideration for ensuring cost performance. Various cost management techniques can be applied throughout the project life cycle to avoid poor cost performance and overrun of cost. This study focused assessing project cost performance and level of effectiveness of various cost management techniques implemented in large construction project in south Malaysia. Data collection was carried out through structured questionnaire survey which resulted in collecting 97 data samples. It was found that most of projects face cost overrun problem with an average overrun in the range of 5% to 10% of the total project cost. Most effective approaches of cost management adopted in construction projects were cash flow forecasting, tender budgeting/estimating and elemental cost plan. Value management and cost code system were rated as less effective technique. One of possible reason for low level of value management application in Malaysian construction industry may be unawareness of the benefits of value management. Realizing the advantages of value management, it should be considered to implement this method to achieve better cost performance.

Application of PLS-SEM to Assess the Influence of Construction Resources on Cost Overrun

Being resource-driven industry, success and failure of construction projects highly depend on resources. As construction industry is now-a-days facing major problem of cost overrun worldwide, this can be contributed by construction resource issues. Hence, this study aimed to assess impact of construction resource on project cost overrun. Structured questionnaire survey was carried out to understand the perception of construction practitioners. A total of 106 samples were collected. Partial Least Square (PLS) of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach regarded as the graphical equivalent of a mathematical representation of relationship between dependant variable to explanatory variable was adopted for data analysis, as common methods of data analyze does not give insight of underlying relationships between various factors. In analyzing cause-effect relationships, PLS-SEM is a dominant approach to establish rigor in complex models. Smart PLS 2.0 software was used to test the relationship between resources and cost overrun. The developed structural model indicates that relationship between resource and cost overrun was satisfactory by having substantial explaining power (GoF=0.529) and 40% of the cost overrun was influenced with resources. The most significant resource was construction material. Hence, effective material planning and management is vital to improve potential construction cost overrun.

Risk Level of Factors Contributing to Waste Generation in Construction Phase

Construction waste generation is a common problem in the construction industry of Malaysia. This generation of construction waste is occurred due to several factors. Each factor has a different level of risk on the construction performance which is important to determine for effective waste management. Hence, this study is conducted to determine the risk level of various factors contributing to waste generation in the construction phase. A total of 32 factors identified from the literature review were investigated through questionnaire survey. Survey was done using Delphi technique with 2 rounds. Delphi round 1 aimed to determine the risk level of each factor while round 2 focused on confirming the findings of round 1. The panel of expert participating in round one of data collection consisted of 15 experts while, in round two, 11 experts participated. Data collected for probability of occurrence and severity level during round 1, was analyzed with Average Index (AI) formula. Calculated AI values were further analyzed with a risk matrix. Results showed that 14 factors have high risk level while 18 factors have medium risk level. Analysis of round 2 highlighted that the experts agreed with the determined risk level of all the factors except 2 factors i.e. equipment failure and supplier errors. Results also indicate that the factors in the category Human Resource/Manpower are the most severe factors contributing to the generation of construction waste on site. These findings will help the practitioners to prepare an effective strategy to control the waste problem.

Relevancy of factors and mitigation measures in controlling time and cost overrun towards Malaysian Environment

Construction projects are facing time and cost overrun globally. Since, this problem occurs due to various factors, hence for achieving successful construction projects, it is very important to control the responsible factors causing time and cost overrun. This study assessed the relevancy for each mitigation measures in relation with causative factors of time and cost overrun in Malaysian construction projects. A total of 56 mitigation measures were identified and correlated with the critical factors of time and cost overrun which were categorized into four phases of project life cycle. Data collection was done by conducting structured interviews amongst the experienced practitioners of the southern regions of Peninsular Malaysia.

Implementation of building information modeling in Malaysian construction industry

This study has assessed the implementation level of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the construction industry of Malaysia. It also investigated several computer software packages facilitating BIM and challenges affecting its implementation. Data collection for this study was carried out using questionnaire survey among the construction practitioners. 95 completed forms of questionnaire received against 150 distributed questionnaire sets from consultant, contractor and client organizations were analyzed statistically. Analysis findings indicated that the level of implementation of BIM in the construction industry of Malaysia is very low. Average index method employed to assess the effectiveness of various software packages of BIM highlighted that Bentley construction, AutoCAD and ArchiCAD are three most popular and effective software packages. Major challenges to BIM implementation are it requires enhanced collaboration, add work to a designer, interoperability and needs enhanced collaboration. For improving the level of implementing BIM in Malaysian industry, it is recommended that a flexible training program of BIM for all practitioners must be created.This study has assessed the implementation level of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the construction industry of Malaysia. It also investigated several computer software packages facilitating BIM and challenges affecting its implementation. Data collection for this study was carried out using questionnaire survey among the construction practitioners. 95 completed forms of questionnaire received against 150 distributed questionnaire sets from consultant, contractor and client organizations were analyzed statistically. Analysis findings indicated that the level of implementation of BIM in the construction industry of Malaysia is very low. Average index method employed to assess the effectiveness of various software packages of BIM highlighted that Bentley construction, AutoCAD and ArchiCAD are three most popular and effective software packages. Major challenges to BIM implementation are it requires enhanced collaboration, add work to a designer, interoperability and needs enhanced collaboration. For ...

Assessing Low-Cost Housing Demand in Melaka: PLS-SEM Approach

Housing is one of the basic needs of human. Population in Malaysia is increasing and expected to reach up to 35 million in year 2020. This phenomenon creates high demand for housing. To tackle the squatter problems, the government introduces low-cost housing. Low cost house is known as the government house, where the price is cheaper but still comfortable. Although there are many of low-cost housing projects have been completed to cope with the need of the citizen especially for low-income group. However, census report reveled that these is huge demand of low-cost housing. This demand might be because of various factors which are very essential to identify in order to meet the required demand of low cost houses. Hence, this study is carried out to assesse the demand of low cost housing in Melaka, determine the significant factors affecting demand of low-cost housing, and establish PLS-SEM model for assessing factors affecting low-cost housing demand. In this study, data are collected by distributing questionnaire in Melaka state. The collected data from survey was analyzed using statistical software SPSS and presented in graphs and chart. Further, factors affecting low cost housing demand in Melaka were modeled with the SmartPLS v2.0. The model shows the relationship between low cost housing demand and its indicators. The finding of the study showed that most significant indicators affecting the demand of low-cost housing in Melaka are the economic factors which include housing stock, inflation rate and Gross Domestic Products (GDP). The Goodness of Fit showed that the model has substantial explaining power for the assessing factors affecting low cost housing demand in Melaka which the values is 0.481. This means that the economic factor has a great influence on the low-cost housing demand in Melaka.