No abstract

The construction industry believes that Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a platform to transform the construction industry to a higher level by enhancing productivity and efficiency. It is proven that with BIM process execution, productivity can be enhanced through the effective collaboration process, increased return of investment, and reliable information to support the decision-making process. Efficiency can be enhanced through an integrated design process, reliable and accurate cost estimates, reduced financial risk, and reduced potential dispute. Thus, clients are gradually enforcing the use of BIM in their projects, resulting in many construction companies investing in BIM technology to fulfil clients’ needs. This paper presents a review of over recent research to identify the key of elements of awareness, benefits, strategies and implementation of BIM. The result reveals that the top ten (10) ranking of BIM awareness, BIM benefits, BIM challenges and BIM strategies for the industry player to implement and adopt BIM in Sarawak construction industry.

The Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC) developed by CIDB to measure and evaluate the quality of workmanship and finishes of construction works. Unfortunately, QLASSIC is not fully implemented and applied by all contractors in Malaysia as this element is not a compulsory requirement in getting projects. This paper presents the findings of determination on the understanding of contractors towards the implementation of Quality Assessment System in construction (QLASSIC) in construction industry. This objective was achieved based on the literature review and questionnaire survey. The respondents were selected based on the grade of contractor from G5 to G7 construction companies in Klang Valley. Sample of questionnaire would be 200 and the reply from respondents responded is 95. The data was analysed using Reliability Analysis and Descriptive Analysis. The results indicate that the understanding of contractors is only basic understanding on QLASSIC system but the detail implementation of QLASSIC from contractors were still low. On further research, it may able to study on the implementation of QLASSIC in client’s perspective. The research will study on the implementation of QLASSIC but in the others perspective which is look into the understanding of QLASSIC to clients, the challenges and benefit from QLASSIC implementation.

The usage of agricultural waste in form of ashes as one of the constituent materials in concrete has been studied in recent years. Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) is one of the largest agricultural wastes produced in Malaysia that contain high amount of silica with pozzolanic properties. The mass production of POFA are typically disposed to open area and in turn can generate environmental issues and health hazards. Due to the waste disposal problem, a number of initiatives have been done by utilizing POFA into various construction materials including as substitute to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in concrete production. This paper discusses on the water absorption properties and compressive strength of concrete by utilizing POFA in several series of cement replacement. OPC was replaced by POFA at 2.5%, 5%,7.5% and 10% in these series of mix design. Control OPC concrete sample was also prepared for comparison. The samples were prepared in 100 mm cubic moulds and tested for compressive strength and water absorption for 7, 14 and 28-day curing ages. Three replicates were prepared for each concrete mix and for each test conducted. The results stipulated that the higher percentage of POFA replacement decreased the compressive strength and increased the water absorption amount of concrete mixture over different concrete ages.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital view which represent the functional and physical of building in construction project. BIM has become a necessity in today’s construction industry from the point of of providing digital representation and integration between project stakeholders, as well as providing the possibility of processing and storing the project information in a common database. Despite these advantages, the acceptance of BIM remain at a marginal level. Sarawak construction industry itself has fallen far behind on BIM implementation. Moreover, as construction projects in the state of Sarawak become increasingly diversify and complex, the need for BIM in Sarawak becomes increasingly important. Therefore, this paper has explored the awareness of BIM in the Sarawak construction industry. To realize this, a structured questionnaire survey form was distributed to 300 construction stakeholders through simple random sampling method. Out of the 300 questionnaire surveys, a total of 133 were returned and analyzed using descriptive, mean and factor analysis. The results were tabulated and ranked in descending order. Findings of this paper revealed that awareness level of BIM is gaining its momentum and the implementation of related software in Sarawak construction industry is still low. Factor analysis procedure for awareness of BIM has been conducted and this has extracted two distinct components which is awareness on knowledge and software with eigenvalues exceeding 1.0. This paper therefore encourages and recommends BIM implementation in the Sarawak construction industry, derivable through BIM awareness to increase productivity, better coordination, and minimized errors and repetition of works in the construction operations.