Arman Abdul Razak

The characteristics of real estate assets management practice in the Malaysian Federal Government

Purpose – The management of public real estate assets by government agencies has been in place for many years as government agencies own their real estate assets in order to provide services to their communities. The management process becomes progressively complex and difficult because real estate ownership by agencies increases in amount, value and diversity over time. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current characteristics of the real estate management practice that is being implemented by the Malaysian Government agencies.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative approach has been used for this study where the data were collected through the use of interviews. The respondents to the study were government officers who execute real estate management functions within the ministries. The collected data were subsequently analyzed through the framework analysis method.Findings – The results have shown that eight characteristics can be used to illustrate how the governments real estate assets ...

What Women Want: Hotel Characteristics Preferences of Women Travellers

The tourism industry depends by and large on travellers and tourists. While it has become a practical precept that most travel decisions are made by males, women travellers of late, have become a very important consumer segment within the tourism industry. As recent as 2005, women travellers accounted for approximately 43% of the business travellers worldwide and are seen as a growing lucrative demographic by industry experts. Marketing experts opine that 85 % of all buying decisions are made by the fairer sex. In addition to this, the majority of corporate purchasing agents and managers are women. This translates to the fact that women make approximately 70% of travel decisions for the family as well as for other people, for instance employers or employees. With the inherent distinctiveness of the female psyche, there is bound to be a rather specific preference or inclination on accommodation characteristics that these women travellers would look for. Women travellers are perceived to be especially interested in security, cleanliness, communication facilities, style and ambience of space, smooth check-in/check-out procedures as well as in comfortable access and/or transfers.

Installation systems of on-site prefabricated concrete components: a qualitative approach

ABSTRACT The construction industry has been identified as one of the more important sectors towards realizing the aim of making Malaysia a developed country by the year 2020. Towards this end, the construction industry needs to become more competitive and productive. One major strategy is the implementation of the industrialized building system (IBS). The implementation of IBS requires comprehensive studies to be undertaken to allow project stakeholders fully understand the benefits that may be gained from IBS. The selection of an appropriate installation system is vital in making IBS effective and successful. This paper identifies the on-site prefabricated component installation systems practised and appraises the factors for selection. Structured interviews were carried out with 32 parties directly involved in the on-site prefabricated components installation operation. The study reveals three main prefabricated component installation systems, namely the horizontal-, vertical- and mixed-based systems. Six main influencing factors were also discovered that allow for a more informed decision to be made on system selection. Out of the six factors, it was revealed that the availability of prefabricated components and crane mobility to be the most important factors in determining installation system selection.

Real Estate Management in Malaysian Public Schools: Determination of Success Factors

Abstract Effective real estate management practice is needed to ensure that the property in Malaysia, including public schools, can be fully utilized. The purpose of this study is to identify the success factors of the real estate management of Malaysia’s public schools. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire was developed as a research tool. The respondents involved were representatives of public schools and officers from the state education department offices (on the basis of whom the total population was calculated) in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. The respondents were chosen using a random sampling method. The success factors of managing property in public schools were identified by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), using the principals of component analysis, the t-test, Cronbach’s alpha and mean analysis. The findings show that the majority of the respondents agreed that all of the listed 18 success factors within the 4 main factor groups as addressed in the survey are important for the efficient and effective improvement of real estate management, especially in Malaysian public schools.

Building Defects or Building Failures: Misconception and Understanding

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief of overview of building failures and building defects definitions with various terms from the previous researches and also to redefine the understanding of these definitions within the context of building maintenance management domain. Therefore, this article presents the insight of previous definition of building failures and building defects and provides their respective understanding in various aspects. It then provides the detail discussion on the building failures and defects definitions, understanding causes and effects in term of building maintenance management perspective. All the related onformatin has been gathered through secondary resources such as journal article, text book, report and others. The information and knowledge on the subject of building failures and building defects help in producing the building design with reliable, maintainability, and supporting for future building maintenance and building improvement. Finally, this paper has successed in describing a clear explanation regarding to the meaning of building failures and building defects.