Research in Construction Engineering and Management

Research Activities

(1) Pre-cast Reinforced Concrete Pile Caps

The current trend of increasing efficiency and productivity in the management of construction activities has placed considerable emphasis on the use of precast members where off-site manufacture, under controlled conditions, and uncoupled from site processes and delays, can provide a constant supply of precast elements. The use of precast elements is more crucial at locations where heavy rains can cause serious delays due to difficult working environment. This is particularly evident for foundation works in soft or slimy soils where heavy rainfall can cause the sides of the excavation to fail and thus requires further time and effort to rectify the excavation.

An innovative system of precast pile caps is proposed where no extensive ground preparation or external forms are required. The steel cage can be constructed separately and cast with a thin layer of concrete on the sides to form a precast reinforced concrete. This shell serves as a permanent form for the pile cap and rests directly on the cut-off piles. The precast shell is then in-filled with in situ concrete to complete the construction of the pile cap. A lean concrete layer, which is normally required to provide a firm base, may not be necessary with this system.

The objectives of this project are to compare the ultimate and service load carrying capacities of precast reinfored concrete pile caps with conventional cast in situ pile caps and to study the behaviour of these precast units.

The concept of this precast pile cap is to cast a thin concrete shell together with the steel reinforcement cage to provide a permanent form to hold the fresh concrete. The sides of the steel cage are cast with a thin layer of concrete of approximately 70mm to provide an outer cover of at least 50mm to the steel bars. Inner cover to the steel is not required, as the in situ concrete will protect the bars. The bottom of the steel cage is left open to enable it to rest on the top of the piles, leaving a small clearance between the precast shell and the ground. After proper alignment of the precast element and the addition of the column starter bars, the pile cap can be infilled with fresh concrete. The bottom steel bars provide all necessary anchorage between the precast shell and the cast in situ concrete.

(2) Effects of Safety Practices on Productivity of Site Operations in Malaysian High-Rise Building Projects

Safety performance in the Malaysian construction industry has lagged behind most other industries as evidenced by its disproportional high rate of accidents. Although accident statistics can play an important role as a prime indicator for measuring safety performance as well as a framework for evaluating accident prevention programs, statistics of accidents occurred in the Malaysian construction sector have not been well organized and maintained. Moreover, the existing systems of statistics collection are still not standardized and based only on post-accident information and analysis. They provide factual information regarding the post accident situation, but ignore conditions existing prior to occurrence of the accident. This means the information can be used only for analyzing the post-accident data and developing the statistics from it, not for contributing to a prediction of the risk of accidents in order to take appropriate action on site for accident prevention. Therefore, there is a need to have a mechanism to estimate the risk of accidents based on current safety practices and predict their effects on construction operations.

This research study aims at examining the risk of accidents based on current safety practices and to quantify the effects of such risk on productivity of construction operations. The study will focus on on-site construction operations in Malaysian high-rise building projects. Major site operations having high risk of accidents and significant cost impact will be selected, and factors affecting safety performance in these operations will be identified. Effects of these factors on the risk of accidents will be analyzed by estimating the probability of accidents due to fuzzy-based effects of the factors prior to the occurrence of accidents. The productivity variation resulting from the probability of accidents will then be assessed using a simulation technique to reflect the impact of accident risk on productivity. A forecasting model for predicting the productivity variation based on current safety practices will then be developed using the Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based approach. Finally, the results of this research will be used as a basis to develop a software program (or a web-based program) that can help construction practitioners evaluate their safety performance and predict the effects of such performance on the risk of accidents and the productivity variation.

The proposed study will help identify critical factors contributing to the occurrence of accidents in major on-site operations in Malaysian high-rise building projects. It will also help personnel who are responsible for site safety make more appropriate decisions to ensure the safe and cost-effective work activities regarding safety management. Practitioners’ knowledge about the effects of safety practices on productivity will be enhanced, leading to a better strategy to balance safety practices and productivity.

(3) Innovative Project Delivery Methods through Public-Private-Partnership - A Case Study on Malaysia's SMART Project

SMART, an acronym for Storm-water Management and Road Tunnel is a major infrastructure project aimed principally at alleviating the perennial floods in Kuala Lumpur. The project exhibits characteristics of the PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) – whereby two Government agencies (i) the Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia, and (ii) the Malaysian Highway Authority collaborate with two private companies namely the (iii) Malaysian Mining Corporation Berhad, and (iv) Gamuda Berhad – in the initiation, funding, designing, constructing and upon its completion to operate and maintain the infrastructure. In addition, the delivery method used in this project is considered innovative as it combines Design & Build with Project Management Consultancy and funded through the BOT and deferred payment mechanisms. This study will critically evaluate the appropriateness of the proposed method of project delivery used in the procurement of the SMART project.

MUST Investigator: Assistant Prof. Dr. Pollaphat Nitithamyong
Research Assistant: Chang Lih Herng, Er Soon Chin
IIUM Collaborator: Prof. Dr. Khairuddin Abdul Rashid

 (4) Issues and Challenges of Low Cost Housing Development in Malaysia

The housing development program under the 8th Malaysia Plan is aimed at increasing accessibility to adequate, affordable and quality houses for all income groups, particularly the low-income sector. This program focuses not only on improving the living standards of Malaysians, but also on harvesting the development of a so called “caring society.” However, the actual progress of low cost housing development has not reached its expected level. This unsatisfied progress is discrediting the social contribution of the program.

This project aims to examine the critical success factors of the low cost housing development in Malaysia from the perspectives of private sectors: developers and non-government organizations (NGOs). Important issues such as the selling price, locations, and financial arrangement, will be highlighted. The findings may lead to a better implementation of the Malaysia’s housing development program, particularly on the allocation of housing to the lower-income groups.

(5) Quality and Change Management Using Dynamic Planning and Control Methodology

The increased demand for faster design and construction, and increased uncertainties and complexity in design and build has made projects more difficult to handle, and may generate more errors and changes. Unanticipated errors and changes in construction projects often cause delays in the schedule, cost overruns and affect project performance. This project develops a framework for quality and change management to study the nature of these errors and changes. The proposed framework is integrated with Dynamic Planning and control Methodology (DPM) that pursues both strategic and operational aspects of the project management to identify the impact of iterative cycles and the effectiveness of the diverse construction policies. As a validation effort of usability of DPM in local projects, DPM is applied to a multi-purpose building example. The lessons learnt from this case project can aid in the understanding of errors and changes of local projects in other domains or discipline in the future.

(6) Application of Real Options Pricing Model In Steel Procurement

This project aims at empirical testing of the application of real option pricing model to steel procurement in the local construction industry under price uncertainty.The methodology utilized in the study was the RO pricing model originally developed by Black and Scholes and Merton (1973) to analyze the pricing of options on common stocks where the financial market of options and other derivatives has been growing exponentially, providing numerous ways for individuals and corporations to hedge risks and improve the performance of their portfolios. The uncertainties are high in the construction industry as well. The procurement of steel is usually short-term, project-based and subject to high price volatility. These characteristics and the competitive nature of the industry lower the profit margin of contractors. The boundary conditions, smoothing the flexibility option, are constructed for finding the optimal switching rules, depending on the volatility of steel price. Preliminary findings from a local case indicates that current construction planning, estimating and management practices regarding uncertainty fail to optimize the project value.

(7) Critical Success Factors of Project Management Consultant in the Malaysian Construction Industry

The concept of Project Management Consultant (PMC) is considered as a relatively new strategy for project management in the Malaysian construction industry. This concept is often related to improved performance in coordination among project participants and better time management of overall construction procurement. However, only a limited number of studies have been conducted on the implementation issues and role of PMC in Malaysian construction projects, and therefore many important concerns regarding PMC still remain unknown or misunderstood. The objectives of this research are to provide an overview of the roles and responsibilities of PMC; the factors affecting success of PMC; and the criteria for measurement of PMC's success in the Malaysian construction industry. A list of 40 factors affecting success of PMC in the Malaysian construction industry were compiled from extensive literature review and verified through interviews with 20 experts with practical experience in PMC application in the Malaysian construction industry. The list comprising of 40 PMC success factors and 17 measurement criteria of PMC's success were compiled to form a questionnaire survey that would be distributed to construction industry practitioners with experience in working with a PMC in any construction projects. Factor analysis would be used to identify a smaller group of factors that represents relationships among sets of all the interrelated variables of factors affecting PMC success. The results from the research will provide a better understanding of PMC concept and its relationships to the success of construction projects leading to an improved strategy for PMC implementation in Malaysia.

(8) Implementation Strategies for the "Build-Then-Sell" Housing Delivery Concept in Malaysia

The Build-Then-Sell (BTS) housing delivery concept has been discussed among industry players as opposed to the current practice of Sell-Then-Build (STB) housing delivery concept. The BTS is proposed due to the current problems of abandoned housing projects, late delivery of houses to the purchasers and substandard of workmanship.

The objective of this research is to propose a set of implementation strategies that could be used in a BTS housing project. Therefore, the implementation strategies for BTS will be identified through the actual case studies from a few successful BTS housing developments in the Klang Valley. Firstly, a detailed study on these few successful BTS housing developments is conducted through interviews, expert questionnaires and surveys. Comparison between the ideas and strategies that have been adopted in BTS for the case studies is identified and a final set of implementation strategies will be identified. Secondly, an industry survey data set will be distributed to the developers in order to gather the additional supporting evidence from the industry players for the implementation of BTS housing delivery concept. Finally a comprehensive set of implementation strategies for BTS will be identified.

The findings of this research may contribute to the housing industry in Malaysia to solve or reduce the problems mentioned and as a reference for the developers who intend to implement BTS in their housing development successfully.

(9) Expert system for maximizing the productivity of construction of multi-storey cast in-situ reinforced concrete structure using artificial neural network and genetic algorithm

This expert system aids the construction manager in finding the optimum values of a set of controllable variables given a set of uncontrollable or constrained set of variables that affect productivity of the construction of multi-storey cast in-situ reinforced concrete structure. This expert system is based on a model developed using a feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural network. Genetic algorithm is used to find the optimum values of a set of controllable variables based on this developed model. The artificial neural network is trained using a set of 100 data points collected from a construction site of a multi-storey condominium in Kuala Lumpur which consists of the factors that affect productivity i.e. weather, crew size, type of crane, amount of rework, material deliveries, relocation of crane, work area, crew interfacing, tool availability, overtime, skills of labor, repetitive of activities, cleanliness, tidiness, noise level and their associated productivity level.