Faizah Ahmad

Exploiting town planning factors in land development: Case study of urban housing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how planning factors affect urban housing development in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The paper encompasses planning approval process, legislative provisions, and planning decisions.Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses published literatures on land‐use planning to unveil diverse negative effects on property development, particularly on urban housing supply. Primary data are gathered through questionnaire surveys to 137 private housing developers and in‐depth interviews with seven local planning authorities to obtain feedback on the issues affecting urban housing development.Findings – The paper establishes that some components of the town planning control can be exploited towards achieving the housing aspiration of a nation.Research limitations/implications – The findings of this paper are based on planning controls on urban housing development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Practical implications – The paper attempts to encourage public policy...

Significant Characteristics of Scheduled and Condition-Based Maintenance in Office Buildings

AbstractSustainability of buildings is one of the main aims in the construction industry. In achieving sustainability, maintenance of buildings and its facilities, which include planning, implementation, and outcome of maintenance activities, becomes an important criterion. This paper aims to identify the significant characteristics of scheduled and condition-based maintenance in office buildings through reviews of relevant literature and a questionnaire survey. The significance of the characteristics was identified through ranking analysis. A semistructured interview was conducted to obtain further details on the characteristics and measures to enhance efficiency of the characteristics. The findings reveal that the dominant characteristics for scheduled maintenance include quality of spare part and material, the level of labor skill and knowledge, and budget allocation for maintenance labor, whereas for condition-based maintenance, the dominant characteristics are the level of manager skill and knowledge...

DSS for Tendering Process: Integrating Statistical Single-Criteria Model with MCDM Models

The objective of this paper is to describe a framework of decision support system (DSS) for a tendering process. There are some public agencies that still perform a decision analysis based on single criteria. One agency, Jabatan Kerja Raya Malaysia (JKRM) is using a statistical model in performing its tendering process. In this paper, multi criteria decision making (MCDM) model is proposed by integrating the existing statistical models with weight, and guided analytic hierarchy process (GAHP). The framework consists of a series of steps beginning with determining whether tenderers fulfil the prerequisites. Those who pass the first stage will proceed to the second stage evaluation. The second stage is to determine the cut-off price (COP), and freak prices using statistical methods. The third and final stage is a true DSS where a decision maker (DM) can evaluate the criteria, and alternatives using weight model, and GAHP. The contribution of this research lies in the methodology for integrating statistical, weight, and GAHP models in order to perform tendering analysis as to achieve the final ranking of contractors for JKRM tendering in association with a system developed by the authors. The system integrates a systematic guidance for AHP data entry matrices for which we coin the term GAHP meant to minimize possibility of inconsistency data entry selected by a DM.

Guarding the Neighbourhood: The New Landscape of Control in Malaysia

While securitised enclaves have become a global phenomenon, case studies of particular nations reveal the unique interplay between local conditions and international influences. This article presents the first major empirical study of gated developments in Malaysia. We found two types of enclosures being produced in urban Malaysia. Market-produced gated communities, attracting affluent households to live within elegant walls, dominate new growth areas in major cities. Guarded neighbourhoods are a post-market product: that is they result from resident-initiated actions to impose makeshift boundaries and controls in older neighbourhoods. Although concerns about safety and security permeate the national discourse around gates and guards, new structures of enclosure reinforce and reproduce shifting structures of inequality, class and ethnicity in urban Malaysia.

Optimising maintenance cost performance with skilled technicians

Purpose – High-maintenance cost is the common issue in building industry due to low service quality of maintenance management in Malaysia. Lack of preventive measure is the problem that implicates poor maintenance performance. Scheduled maintenance is suggested to improve the maintenance performance. However, the effectiveness of scheduled maintenance can be greatly influenced by the availability of skilled technicians. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the aspects of skilled technician to be concerned in maintenance management, as well as to establish the relationship between the aspects and maintenance cost performance. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative approach is adopted and carried out through questionnaire survey. Furthermore, descriptive analysis and correlation analysis are used to analyse the research data. Findings – The literature review identifies three aspects of skilled technician to be concerned in maintenance management. Then, research result demonstrates that the s...

Enhancing building maintenance cost performance with proper management of spare parts

Purpose – Scheduled building maintenance requires appropriate and adequate spare parts to replace existing parts on a regular basis. Management of spare parts is seen as an important criterion to ensure the efficiency of scheduled maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to identify the contributors of spare parts management and investigate the relationship between these contributors and maintenance cost performance. Design/methodology/approach – This research adopted a quantitative approach, which utilised questionnaire surveys to study the relationship between the contributors of spare parts management and maintenance cost performance. The data were analysed through descriptive analysis, correlation, and regression analysis. Additionally, a case study was examined to validate the results obtained from the survey. Findings – The results of this research demonstrated that the quality of spare parts (QSP), budget allocation for acquisition of spare parts, and level of stocks were significantly correlated ...

Influences of key stakeholders’ involvement in maintenance management

Purpose Proper maintenance management ensures a long-term investment and provides a support function in business continuity to achieve organisational goal. However, inadequate involvement and participation of key stakeholders in maintenance management limit the continuous improvement of maintenance performance. Currently, there is a lack of studies about the influence of key stakeholders’ involvement in maintenance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to deal with enhancement of maintenance management through the involvement of key stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach This research adopted a mixed method approach to determine the relationship between involvement of key stakeholders in maintenance management and maintenance effectiveness. The approach comprised of literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. Findings This research suggests a positive correlation between involvement of maintenance manager (MM), maintenance staff, organisation, user and maintenance service provider (SP) in improving the effectiveness of maintenance management. The logistic regression analysis indicated that the involvement of MM and SP are significant predictors of maintenance effectiveness. The research further identified that there was a lack of involvement of the user and SP in maintenance management. Originality/value The research demonstrated that all key stakeholders should value the important roles of their participation in maintenance management to ensure an optimum return on a long-term investment. To create the awareness for the involvement of key stakeholders in building maintenance, studies on the advantages of participating in building maintenance and the impacts of ignorant towards building maintenance can be beneficial to the industry.

Relationship between Predetermined Maintenance Interval and Maintenance Performance

Lack of preventive measure is currently the problem that implicates poor maintenance outcome. Scheduled maintenance is claimed as a maintenance strategy to tackle the problem. However, the effectiveness of scheduled maintenance can be greatly influenced by the length of predetermined maintenance interval. Thus, this paper aims to study the relationship between length of predetermined maintenance interval and maintenance performance. The literature review identifies the length of predetermined maintenance interval as an importance characteristic of scheduled maintenance strategy. A quantitative approach is adopted and carried out through questionnaire survey. Subsequently, descriptive analysis and correlation analysis are used to analyse the collected data. Then, research result demonstrates that the length of predetermined maintenance interval is significantly correlated to the maintenance performance. The length of predetermined maintenance interval must be considered in maintenance planning and execution. The research recommends continuous monitoring or regular inspection of building systems and components to identify their condition and update the length of predetermined maintenance interval regularly. Consequently, the effective maintenance execution helps to avoid systems failure occurs and optimises maintenance performance.

Evaluating Potential Environmental Variables and Active Aging in Older Adults for Age-Friendly Neighborhoods in Malaysia

ABSTRACT As Malaysias population is aging rapidly, and since there is no specific housing policy for the elderly, it is vital that neighborhoods meet the different needs of elderly for active aging to maintain their quality of life. This study aims to investigate the neighborhood environmental variables, the outcome active aging, and potential variables that inhibit active aging in the elderly that lead to their quality of life. It examined quality-of-life determinants that are influenced by the existence of certain neighborhood characteristics. In the study, 385 older adults aged 60+ years residing in two different cities in Malaysia were surveyed. Multiple regression was used to explore how much variance in active aging variables the neighborhood environmental factors explained as a group. The results showed that permeability, accessibility, and facilitators to walking are key determinants of active aging. There is a need to improve the physical design of the neighborhoods with regard to these three factors.