Search results

Climate change and global warming have increased concerns over the influence of weather on workers' health and productivity in construction projects. A significant number of studies can be found in the weather and productivity interplay area. The purpose of this paper is to review the recently published papers in this area to explore the trends of research and topics discussed and to determine knowledge gaps and directions for future research.

Recent papers published between 2014 and 2019 were synthesized, reviewed and analyzed using bibliometric and text mining analysis.

The results revealed the trends of publications, the main authors contributed to this area and countries that attracted most of the research papers. Based on the review, this study presented a taxonomy of studies consisting of seven clusters, namely productivity management, seasons, weather factors, participants' conditions, uniform and clothing, work time and health and safety.

This review paper sheds a light into the topics discussed in this area, the interrelationship between the topics and the significant topics that should be continued in the future. Global warming concerns necessitate the need for more studies in tropical countries and countries that are expected to expose to high temperatures and heat stress, which greatly impact labor productivity. The paper highlighted the need to understand how weather influences workers' psychological conditions and subsequently their productivity.

Weather is one of the main factors affecting labour productivity. Existing weather-productivity models focussed on hot and cold climates paying less attention to the tropics. Many tropical countries are expected to be the most areas affected by accelerated climate change and global warming, which may have a severe impact on labour health and productivity. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the existing models can be used to predict labour productivity based on weather conditions in the tropics.

Five models are identified from the literature for evaluation. Using real labour productivity data of a high-rise building project in Malaysia, the actual productivity rate was compared with predicted productivity rates generated using the five models. The predicted productivity rates were generated using weather variables collected from an adjusting weather station to the project.

Compared with other models evaluated in this paper, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was found to be the best model to predict productivity based on the case study data. However, the result shows only a 57% accuracy level of the USACE model indicating the need to develop a new model for the tropics for more accurate prediction.

The result of this study is perhaps the first to apply meteorological variables to predict productivity rates and validate them using actual productivity data in the tropics. This study is the first step to developing a more accurate productivity model, which will be useful for project planning and more accurate productivity rate estimation.

A walkability friendly environment is crucial in historical towns and cities built with minimal number of motor vehicles. This research aims to assess physical attributes of pedestrianization in Georgetown, Penang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site regarding walkability. A structured interview was conducted among 170 respondents at six different streets to examine citizens' satisfaction on the pedestrian facilities using six walkability features including a) pathway, b) zebra crossing, c) signage, d) personal safety, e) traffic flow and, f) aesthetics & amenities. Relative Importance Index (RII) analysis show that existing pathways do not meet acceptable standards in promoting a walkable environment. Aesthetic and amenities scores the lowest in satisfactory level and zebra crossing scores the highest in unsatisfactory level. The level of walkability in the World Heritage Site in Georgetown, Penang are found inadequate. Provision of physical walking and built heritage features without providing sufficient activities along the streets do not yield high walkability.

The era of digital construction, including building information modelling (BIM), has placed a high demand for a seamless collaboration of people, technology and processes in meeting a project delivery. The project actors involved in a BIM process must ensure compliance with all regulations and contractual requirements from inception. While many studies have disclosed the various contractual implications arising from BIM implementation, little has been examined on the current state of BIM in contract administration practice, particularly in the Malaysian construction industry. This study aims to explore the current state of BIM implementation with specific reference to a design-and-build construction project.

The exploratory case study involved the construction of a public complex. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the project actors, and document analysis was performed on the project’s contractual guidelines to derive the findings.

Findings from the thematic analysis revealed the following five sequences of activities that guided the contract administration practices, particularly during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project: project inception, tendering phase, detailed design, construction and preparation for the handing over phase. Most of the activities were conducted to deliver the final BIM outputs successfully. Nevertheless, some shortcomings were noted in the project monitoring, the validation process of the BIM deliverables and the BIM players’ competency level in fulfilling the specified BIM contractual requirements.

The study contributes to a practical understanding of how BIM can affect project administration and how a public client can improve contractual risk allocation in future BIM implementation.

This paper discloses the current practices of contract administration to better understand the impacts of BIM management during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project.

The main objectives of this paper are to identify general characteristics of refurbishment projects and problems arise in Malaysian context.

Quantitative and qualitative approaches using postal questionnaire survey and semi‐structured interviews were used in data collection. A total of 1,552 questionnaire sets sent to professional architects.

The results show that the majority of refurbishment projects in Malaysia involved residential and office types of building with contract value less than RM500,000.00 (USD 150,000.00). Some of major problem in refurbishment projects are inconsistence in client's needs, refurbishment projects exceed targeted costs and times.

The literature search and survey results showed that systematic studies into the refurbishment were relatively sparse. Therefore, more detail study gear towards refurbishment area is needed for Malaysian construction industry in the future. The findings provide general overview of refurbishment projects in Malaysia, which could help intrested researchers to have indications on the refurbishment activities.

Survey results provided important information about the general profiles of refurbishment projects in Malaysia. This will helps other researchers who are interested to identify focus area that needs further investigation in refurbishment works.

As a result of the increasing challenges of time overrun, several companies regularly set up delay assessment procedures for performance improvement and profit maximization. In the construction industry, projects are enormously complicated and involve significant budgets, and therefore optimizing project performance through the root cause analysis should be imperative for every project manager. Typically issues of delays in projects are generally discussed and problematized separately, yet a comprehensive framework for systematic analysis and grouping of delays is rarely contended. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the 4P concept (project related, practices, participants, and procurement) for identifying, analyzing, and classifying delays in the internal environment of the project development process.

The 4P conceptual framework was validated through the synthesis of the existing literature.

Interestingly, despite the increasing concerns about delays in the construction industry, most research on delays are project and/or country specific, thus no consensus about the sources of delays. The application of the proposed concept as a theoretical framework would provide an understanding of the available delay sources, their risks and use for project delay assessment and classification.

This study grouped delays based on the shared characteristics and four main sources were identified and analyzed. There may be other sources or factors, yet would be dependent or aspect of the 4P.

The study informs project teams to reduce delays in the construction industry.

The paper is an application of risk assessment tool to conceptualize delays in the internal project environment.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a structural relationship model to study the relationship between causes and effects of poor communication and information exchange in construction projects using Smart-PLS.

The first method of this research is to identify the causes and effects factors of poor communication in construction projects from the extant of literature. The data used to develop the model was collected using a questionnaire survey, which targeted construction practitioners in the Malaysian construction industry. A five-point Likert type scale was used to rate the significance of the factors. The factors were classified under their relevant construct/group using exploratory factor analysis. A hypothetical model was developed and then transformed into Smart-PLS in which the hypothetical model suggested that each group of the cause factors has a direct impact on the effect groups. The hypothesis was tested using t-values and p-values. The model was assessed for its inner and outer components and achieved the threshold criterion. Further, the model was verified by engaging 14 construction experts to verify its applicability in the construction project setting.

The study developed a structural equation model to clarify the relationships between causes and effects of poor communication in construction projects. The model explained the degree of relationships among causes and effects of poor communication in construction projects.

The published academic and non-academic literature introduced many studies on the issue of communication including the definitions, importance, barriers to effective communication and means of poor communication. However, these studies ended up only on the general issue of communication lacking an in-depth investigation of the causes and effects of poor communication in the construction industry. The study implemented advanced structural modeling to study the causes and effects. The questionnaire, the data and concluding results fill the identified research gap of this study. The addressed issue is also of interest because communication is considered one of the main knowledge areas in construction management.

This study aims to investigate the impact of trust in the metaverse on the Islamic banking sector, particularly in facilitating market success. Additionally, it seeks to explore the relationship between metaverse-driven brand image, product features, service quality and overall performance in the market.

Data were collected from 187 participants in Jordan, with the SmartPLS software used to test the hypotheses.

The findings reveal a significant impact of metaverse-enhanced brand image, product features and service quality on Islamic banking market performance. Furthermore, customer trust in the metaverse plays a significant role in shaping the relationship between product features, service quality and Islamic banking market performance.

The study’s practical implications still suggest the need for a more holistic metaverse-driven approach. Investing in service quality initiatives alone may not adequately build and sustain customer trust in the metaverse. Instead, transparent communication on ethical practices in the metaverse is required to reinforce trust and magnify the positive influence of superior service quality in the metaverse.

The synergy of lean construction and building information modelling (BIM) is an important change and transformation driver in the construction industry. It adds value and increases the productivity of construction processes. However, the implementation of lean-BIM in Malaysia is still lacking despite the accelerating BIM adoption rate. This study, therefore, aims to explore factors that potentially drive construction players to adopt lean-BIM for construction projects.

Exploratory interviews were conducted with five construction players knowledgeable in lean and BIM to identify the driving factors for them to implement lean-BIM. Respondents were obtained through the snowball sampling technique, initiated by approaching a government agency that oversees Malaysia's construction industry. Findings were then analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings have shown that four driving factors for construction players initiating the use of lean-BIM in construction projects are (1) top management support, (2) standardisation (3) comprehensive training and (4) financial support.

Due to the exploratory nature of this study and the chosen research design, the conclusions cannot be generalised but can become the indicators for lean-BIM future works in Malaysia or any other developing countries.

The insights from this study provide preliminary indicators for driving the adoption of lean-BIM. This discovery may also help construction companies and policymakers plan appropriate initiatives or strategies to present the need for lean-BIM further development in Malaysia.

The findings are expected to contribute to the lean-BIM research in terms of the demographic context, particularly in Malaysia and possibly assist lean and BIM researchers, practitioners and policymakers in developing countries' perspective.