Ismail Abdul Rahman

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.

A brief review of Compressed Stabilized Earth Brick (CSEB)

Earth as a building material has already known for centuries started with plain mud and straw utilized sun dried producing brick adobe with low strength and durability until its evolved to become fired clay brick with mass rapid production in the kiln. In the growing concern of awareness regarding sustainable building material and environmental issue, Compressed Stabilized Earth Brick (CSEB) give the view of energy efficient, cost reduction and environmental friendly building materials, overall contribution on the sustainable development. It turned out that CSEB properties can be very easy bear comparison with other materials such as concrete block or normal fired brick.

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.

Pozzolanic Characterization Of Waste Rice Husk Ash (RHA) From Muar, Malaysia

Investigation of Rice Husk Ash (RHA) thoroughly under controlled burning is regular issue to obtain result to produce the amorphous silica that has high pozzolanic reactivity characteristic. This paper offered an observation about characteristic of ground and un-ground of un-controlled burning temperature RHA that were taken from rice millings in Muar, Johor Malaysia. Such tests as X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Particle Size Analysis and Specific Area Surface, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Scanning Electron microscope (SEM) were conducted in this investigation to carry out the characteristic of RHA samples. The results show that the RHA was consist approximately 89.90% of silica and the RHA possessed the amorphous particle were dominant than its crystalline part. This proves that the RHA has a big potential as a pozzolanic material considering the silica content and porous structure. In addition, particle size analysis decides whether the pozzolanic reactivity can be increased by grinding process.

Mapping Of Construction Waste Illegal Dumping Using Geographical Information System (GIS)

Illegal dumping of solid waste not only affecting the environment but also social life of communities, hence authorities should have an effective system to cater this problem. Malaysia is experiencing extensive physical developments and this has led to an increase of construction waste illegal dumping. However, due to the lack of proper data collection, the actual figure for construction waste illegal dumping in Malaysia are not available. This paper presents a mapping of construction waste illegal dumping in Kluang district, Johor using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Information of the dumped waste such as coordinate, photos, types of material and quantity of waste were gathered manually through site observation for three months period. For quantifying the dumped waste, two methods were used which are the first method is based on shape of the waste (pyramids or squares) while the second method is based weighing approach. All information regarding the waste was assigned to the GIS for the mapping process. Results indicated a total of 12 types of construction waste which are concrete, tiles, wood, gypsum board, mixed construction waste, brick and concrete, bricks, sand, iron, glass, pavement and tiles, and concrete at 64 points locations of illegal dumping on construction waste in Kluang. These wastes were accounted to an estimated volume of 427.2636 m3. Hopefully, this established map will assist Kluang authority to improve their solid waste management system in Kluang.

The properties of compressed earth-based (CEB) masonry blocks

Abstract This chapter highlights the properties of compressed earth-based masonry block, which covers compression strength, density, water absorption, moisture buffer capacity, shrinkage and thermal conductivity of the compressed earth blocks (CEB). Also, we envision the production of a block that incorporates agro-waste materials such as rice husk ash, palm oil fuel ash and cassava peels to enhance its properties. The importance of the CEB as a sustainable building material for future development is also discussed.