Critical Infrastructure (CI) is a term used to describe important national assets for producing or distributing a continuous flow of essential goods or services. They are marked by immense complexity, characterized predominantly by strong intra and interdependencies as well as hierarchies. These interconnections take many forms, including flows of information, shared security, physical flows of commodities, and others. Previous research has illustrated the relationship between the physical impacts of natural disasters and the social and economic factors on CI. Some research emphasized more the role of CI interdependencies and their importance and influence over the functioning of industries while others have looked the impacts due to disruption of CI after disasters. Nowadays comprehensive identification of all interdependency relationships of CI remains a challenge. As the complexity and interconnectedness of a country's CI evolve, threats and vulnerabilities increase. Thus, investigating how a set of CI interacts and identification of criticality of CI becomes an important topic. This research has made utilization of data mining techniques and proposes a method to identify the criticality of Critical Infrastructure so that to develop better disaster protection and prevention management.
Dispute is recognized as critical cause of deficiency and low performance in construction projects. Plenty of studies have been done in construction dispute management recently; however, there are no studies on construction dispute elimination. This study aims to propose a building information modeling (BIM) approach to control conflict causes before the occurrence of dispute. BIM is one of the latest platforms that promote a high level of collaboration, information sharing, and coordination where its implementation ranges from project initialization to completion stage. The circumstances associating with BIM technology can be utilized to explore the possibilities in conflict and dispute resolution system. Questionnaire surveys are used to collect the primary data. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and multi attribute utility technique (MAUT) are adopted to develop an algorithm and a decision-making framework to manage and resolve the potential conflict causes, particularly for the Malaysian construction industry. Data analysis emerged that five critical conflict factors in Malaysian construction industry are insufficient monitoring of CPM scheduling and updates requirements; failures to understand and correctly bid or price the works; delay in running bill payment; inadequate contractors’ management, supervision, and coordination; and error and omission in design that are originated from time, cost, quality, and documentation. Further analysis to prioritize BIM functions in construction conflict management has been done by the combination of AHP and MAUT results. Consequently, it is affirmed that clash detection and cost estimating, 4D scheduling, 3D visualization and structure analysis as BIM functions obtained the highest score to control conflicting factors.
With the rise of Industry 4.0 and the cutting-edge technologies it introduced, smart construction has become the construction industry's future trend. The Malaysian Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has introduced the Construction 4.0 Strategic Plan (2021–2025) based on local and worldwide demands to facilitate Construction 4.0 and assist academics, industries, and governments in adapting to the rapid changes in Industry 4.0. Twelve emerging technologies have been specified for the transformation of the construction industry by CIDB Malaysia, which are Prefabrication and Modular Construction, Building Information Modeling (BIM), Autonomous Construction, Augmented Reality and Virtualization, Cloud and Realtime Collaboration, 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry, Big Data and Predictive Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Building Materials, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. Nevertheless, the abilities of these 12 technologies have not been fully utilized due to the low adoption rate, and a lack of awareness and knowledge among the stakeholders. This is mainly due to the twelve technologies being introduced separately without proper integration. This study takes the initiative to integrate the 12 emerging technologies into a conceptualized system based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Decision-making Models to provide better industry solutions. This ANN-based decision-making tool for digital twinning (ADMT-DT) in the construction industry is potentially revolutionizing the conventional working method, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also lays the foundation for the development of smart construction and smart cities in the future.
This paper sets out to study, define and reclassify delay in housing delivery system in Malaysia.In the recent years, the issues of delay related to housing and its development are gradually increasing in particular the housing project in Malaysia although the traditional delay factors have been applied to tackle this problem.Therefore, there is a strong need to reorganized and reclassified the delay factors in order to find an effective resolution and way out to solve the problems.This research was carried out through both primary and secondary sources.Triangulation approach has been utilized, in which quantitative method is used to collect data whereas qualitative method is essential to be used for data validation.Based on the data collected, a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) model has been form, showing the relationship of structural delay, institutional delay and cultural delay in relation to housing delivery.From the study conducted, it is found that institutional delay is the major contributor to housing delay in Malaysia.Through the data validation of housing delay index, the study concluded that the Malaysian housing industry is currently experiencing moderate delay.The results from this study would help construction practitioners, developer, consultants, contractors, policy makers, and researchers to have a deep understanding on the delays factors caused in construction process so that proper mitigation measures could be taken place.
Dispute is not uncommon in the complex and fragmented construction industry. Construction disputes, even though extensively investigated, still plagued the Malaysian construction industry. This paper aims to develop a dispute performance index to predict the dispute occurrence in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 374 respondents to generate the weightage of the indices. Dispute sources were classified into stages of pre-construction, construction, and post construction. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on the data collected from the survey. PCA analysis results were then utilized to perform Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis. SEM evaluated the causal relationship between dispute sources and dispute resolution methods to develop a dispute resolution performance index. The index is essential to benchmark the dispute resolution performance and hence provides a guideline to the construction players in handling and or avoiding disputes.
This research aims to discover the challenges and propose effective strategies to empower women by ameliorating the gender wage gap in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry among the APEC members. The study applied document review analysis and conducted focus group discussions, where thirty female professionals in the AEC industry from APEC participated. The results report four challenges contributing to the gender wage gap, namely gender bias and stereotyping, work-family conflicts, physical strength and lack of transparency. Based on the challenges, the study suggests several key strategies focusing on women's participation in the AEC industry, encouraging genderfriendly workplaces, healthy and safe workplaces, and fair career development opportunities to reduce the gender wage gap effectively. The findings suggest that by increasing awareness of the value of women's involvement in the AEC industry, pragmatic policies should be formulated for APEC members to break down the barriers to the gender wage gap.
The construction industry has been evolving, embracing the delicate balance between the Fourth Industry Revolution and sustainable construction to create a sustainable and resilient built environment. Integrating digital tools and technologies in a renowned conventional construction industry is challenging, mainly due to the complex interaction between heterogeneous but heuristic construction processes, building systems, and workflows in achieving a common goal. This study took the initiative to review digital tool adoption and its role in the sustainable built environment by examining the impact of digital adoption in a sustainable built environment in terms of societal and industry impacts. A quantitative analysis is conducted, collecting 63 industry practitioners analysed through regression analysis. The result reveals that energy conservation is the most significant element in the sustainable built environment, which brought the greatest impact on both society and industry in Malaysia. Based on the results, it is found that the digital adoption level in the Malaysian construction industry is still at a minimal level. Through the introduction of Indutry4wrd, National 4IR and Construction 4.0 Strategic Plan (2021–2025), the importance of digital tools and technologies is slowly being acknowledged. The result of the study is significant to benchmark the current digital tools adoption in the Malaysian sustainable built environment. Moreover, the contribution could be made in terms of better understanding and facilitating, where relevant, greater usage of digital tools in the construction industry to promote efficiency.
Abstract Industrial revolution is a series of events driven by the growth of technological innovations, and so far, the world had witnessed the first three industrial revolutions. Today, a new revolution referred to as the fourth industrial revolution is entering even though it is still in its early stages of development. Many developed countries had established their own roadmap or strategic plan as a first step. However, only a few of them touched the construction sector even though the construction industry provides a significant contribution to the country’s GDP. Based on this understanding, there is a fundamental need to give a clear view of Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0 from the construction industry’s perspective, since most users are still finding their way in this transition. An extensive literature review is used to define the scope and terms of the field of construction in the industrial revolution. Towards this goal, a clear definition and concept of each revolution, key technologies related to construction and challenges faced by the industry will be explored. Simultaneously, this review paper also benchmarked a few documents as a simple guide in the transition process to the fourth industrial revolution to avoid a lag in a world where changes are swift and sudden. Therefore, this review paper contributes by providing a better understanding of the challenges and trends in Construction 4.0 to academics and practitioners. Moreover, it will spark new ideas on the policy or strategic roadmap development in the future.
This research aims to discover the challenges and propose effective strategies to empower women by ameliorating the gender wage gap in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry among the APEC members. The study applied document review analysis and conducted focus group discussions, where thirty female professionals in the AEC industry from APEC participated. The results report four challenges contributing to the gender wage gap, namely gender bias and stereotyping, work-family conflicts, physical strength and lack of transparency. Based on the challenges, the study suggests several key strategies focusing on women's participation in the AEC industry, encouraging gender-friendly workplaces, healthy and safe workplaces, and fair career development opportunities to reduce the gender wage gap effectively. The findings suggest that by increasing awareness of the value of women's involvement in the AEC industry, pragmatic policies should be formulated for APEC members to break down the barriers to the gender wage gap.
Abstract Construction Cost Index (CCI) is introduced to enhance cost forecasting in construction projects. However, the effectiveness and its application in the developing countries are limited. Therefore, a case study is conducted in Malaysia to investigate the effectiveness of CCI in developing country. In order to achieve the aim, the objectives of the study are to identify the CCI implementation factors, challenges of CCI that hindering its implementation and to justify its applicability in developing countries. Quantitative approach is selected for data collection. 1000 sets of questionnaires were distributed to the construction industry stakeholders. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) were employed to analyse the collected data. It is found that encouragement from local government plays a vital role in CCI concept. Meanwhile, the reliability and validity of CCI remain as the major CCI implementation challenges in the industry. From the SEM, a causal relationship framework of CCI implementation factors and CCI functions is developed. The framework is important to serve as an implementation guideline for the stakeholders. This study is significant to provide an insight overview of CCI to the stakeholders to enhance cost estimating efficiency.
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