Azlan Shah Ali

• PhD FRICS FRISM
• Professor at University of Malaya

Purpose Although a regulatory framework was established in Malaysia to govern practising property managers, the satisfaction level on residential property management remains low. This unfortunate situation necessitates a review of property managers’ job scope and their current standards of practice. Hence, this study aims to investigate the correla...

Purpose This study aims to improve the use of digitalization in facilities management (FM) for shopping complex facilities in the post-COVID-19 era. The resumption of economic activities, especially in shopping complexes, poses challenges for FM with throngs of shoppers. To tackle these challenges, enhanced and innovative FM practices are necessary...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the history of Anglican churches in Malaysia and discusses their typical features and their respective maintenance practices. Design/methodology/approach A narrative review of 84 literacy sources published between 1967 and 2020 on the development and features of Anglican churches in Malaysia, along with recommend...

This paper aims to investigate the performance of facilities and maintenance services provided in the four cases around Klang Valley for medium-cost stratified residential buildings. The quantitative methodology was adopted via questionnaire surveys to 137 residents of the four residential case study buildings. The analyses are frequency of failure...

Purpose To achieve efficient operation and maintenance (O&M) management, this study seeks to identify critical success factors (CSFs) affecting service delivery factors of O&M services at stratified residential buildings. The purpose of this study is to yield measurable data for developing an effective O&M framework to enhancing its performance. In...

This paper addresses the maintenance of National Heritage Anglican churches in Malaysia. A field survey is presented, describing the current defects of selected Anglican churches in Malaysia and proposing maintenance practices against the identified defects. The neglect in maintaining Anglican churches is alarming. The survey revealed that, aside f...

The maintenance of university hostels is found to be unsatisfactory due to budget constraint in general. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to find out a solution to improve the building maintenance and student satisfaction within the budget allocation. The development of maintenance prioritization framework through the association between conditi...

This paper investigates the challenges faced by the building custodians of Malaysia’s National Heritage Anglican churches in maintaining these structures. Malaysia is one of the countries with a broad variety of architectural styles and old structures due to its rich multicultural society. However, a large number of these structures are in disrepai...

The aim of this research is to explore the body of knowledge on BIM-enabled facility management (BIM-FM). This study proposes a method for knowledge mapping analysis through scientometric analysis, which uses two software, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace, to analyze the results of literature data related to BIM-FM. 319 journal articles were collected for...

This study aims to investigate and discuss the factors that influence buyers’ and investors’ decision in buying and investing in property in hill land areas. A sequential mixed methods approach, which involved extensive literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview was used. Literature review to identify influencing factors...

Choosing the right research methodology is fundamental to obtain accurate results of the study. The research design carries an important influence in selecting the appropriate research method in the study. An understanding of the research process from initiation of a research idea, thorough literature search, and formulation of a research question,...

This chapter reviews the literature related to the introduction, overview on defects and maintenance management in general. The literature to building stock are discussed in this chapter to provide an understanding to the readers on the current scenarios of the general information on buildings in Malaysia. This overview is necessary to understand t...

This chapter reviews the literature related to the factors that contributing to the building defects. Most of the factors contribute to the building defects and it is impossible to control all the factors above during design, construction and occupancy stage. These factors are also related to each other to cause building defects. In this study, it...

This chapter presents the conclusion of the study and followed by recommendations for future research. This research associated by reviewing the literature to identify and formulate the objectives of the study. The conclusion of the research drawn from the results of condition assessment, semi-structured interviews and archived documentation then f...

This chapter reviews method of assessment and inspection to gather the condition of the building. There are many different of methods used to evaluate the condition of element or components of the building. In this study, the BCA guideline of PWD were explained and is to be used in this study. The BCA result is then used as dependent variable for t...

From the study, twenty-one (21) variables were found to be independent variables toward building condition as dependent variable in the study. The variables were analysed to identify the ranking of the result analysis. The other analysis was conducted such as factor analysis to test the relationship between factors toward building condition. The co...

This book presents the results of a novel investigation into building deterioration and defects in Malaysia’s public schools. It sets forth an in-depth theoretical and empirical underpinning the maintenance management of public schools with the view to develop a building deterioration prediction model of building condition based on factors contribu...

Purpose This study aims to discover the perception of persons with disabilities (PWDs) towards facilities management (FM) service quality at hospital buildings in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey was conducted with 99 respondents in selected hospitals in Selangor, Malaysia. Findings This study aims to discover the perc...

Regardless of their size, every town, city, or more generally each place, has its own beautiful, unique and distinct characteristics. However, only few studies have provided valuable information on exceptional and unique features that can contribute to the distinctiveness and identity of small-scale towns. It is important to identify these cultural...

Purpose Refurbishment projects are mainly due to building physical improvements and extensive repair work. However, it is more difficult to manage refurbishment compared to new building projects, due to risk factors. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the risk variables in the refurbishment design process and how they influence the design perfo...

Purpose Built heritage constitutes the uniqueness and identity of a place. While being overlooked in existing research, built heritage in small towns is increasingly threatened by dilapidation, exhaustion and disappearance. Therefore, this study aims to examine the challenges in protecting the unique features and identity of small towns with regard...

The Malaysian Government adopted the Logical Framework Approach (LFA) as a crucial project management tool in implementing Outcome Based Approach (OBA) for public projects in 2009 via the issuance of the Guideline for Planning and Preparation of Programs and Projects Development 1/2009. The guideline was issued by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) o...

Residential buildings need proper building maintenance management to allow residents living in comfort and building owners to preserve their properties. Apart from ensuring the safety of residents, the aesthetic values of the building can be also preserved. Maintenance priority plays a vital role in enhancing the maintenance management process, esp...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the maintenance prioritising for facilities services in high-rise residential buildings in Peninsular Malaysia. Maintenance prioritisation is becoming more prominent in the building maintenance industry due to budget constraints, poor maintenance management and to yield better maintenance performa...

Purpose The building maintenance management becomes more complicated nowadays, with several sourcing strategies springing up for building maintenance work provisions. Various studies demonstrate that the selection factors and performance measurements are both essential aspects in determining and evaluating the sourcing strategy for building mainten...

Purpose Facilities management plays a significant role in the housing industry to support human daily routine and enhancing the productivity of the activities in and around the residential. Nonetheless, facilities management has not been readily encouraged or adopted by the Government in Malaysia in any structured way. The maintenance approaches a...

Purpose: This paper aims to explore current sustainable facilities management knowledge and practice, focusing specifically on sustainable waste management implementation in health-care facilities with an aim to conceptualize a framework for assessing performance and impact of successful implementation of safe and sustainable health-care waste mana...

Creating flexible and comfortable homes contribute an environment that is conducive for active aging people to live. This indirectly leads to more productive ageing environment. One of the main issues for active ageing homes is inability to adapt in ecologically ways when condition change. Ageing people need homes that can sustain and enhance their...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the impacts of good maintenance work for heritage buildings in Malaysia. This purpose is achieved through identifying factors that lead to the lack of maintenance of heritage buildings, establishing strategies to overcome the lack of maintenance of heritage buildings and analyzing the impact of good...

Purpose The physical environment comfort in a workplace is claimed to be vital, as it will encourage healthier, more productive and lower absenteeism rate among employees. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of physical environment comfort and establish its relationship with employees’ performance and productivity. Design/m...

The Total Asset Management Manual (TAMM) is introduced and implemented by Government of Malaysia to manage the government assets. The implementation of public sector facility and asset management is crucial and important to ensure the government building well managed and can serve the purpose for which it is constructed. Therefore, it is important...

The growing population of elderly globally gives rise to the importance to provide better home for elderly. The homes for elderly need special features to support the decrease in physical to mental capabilities of elderly and enable them to lead an active and well-being lifestyle. Maintenance of this special feature and basic elements in the buildi...

Maintaining facilities and services of high-rise residential buildings is crucial in order to ensure the buildings operate optimally and achieve better user satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to deal with the appropriate maintenance interval for two different group of facilities and services namely essential and value-added specifically...

Purpose Refurbishment is inherently more sustainable than building new. However, planned and actual costs of refurbishment projects are bound to vary due to the complex nature of most such projects. This can affect the performance of refurbishment work. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors responsible for elemental cost variations betwee...

Purpose Preventive maintenance is an effective maintenance strategy to ensure the constant and efficient usage of building systems and their components. The reactive-based maintenance as the main strategy in high-rise residential buildings is a concern as the maintenance output resulting from the strategy could not achieve the standard level of pe...

Numerous researches mainly in western countries have found that active aging is associated with a wide range of health benefits for older adults. Although research related to active aging has gained considerable interest in Malaysia, older adults’ active aging is still in its infancy. The crucial role of neighborhood characteristics as promoting ac...

The poor maintenance practice increases the possibility of system failure. Subsequently, the consequences of failure fall on the aspects of output, safety and healthy, environmental integrity, system quality, and customer satisfaction. Conditionbased maintenance is seen as a potential strategy to improve performance. Whereby, the key success factor...

Facilities management is an integrated approach to operate, maintain, improve, and adapt the buildings and facilities of an organisation in order to support the core business operations of that organisation. Due to the lack of knowledge and skill in maintenance-related matters, the organisation and client rely on the facilities manager to take care...

Purpose Proper maintenance management ensures a long-term investment and provides a support function in business continuity to achieve organisational goal. However, inadequate involvement and participation of key stakeholders in maintenance management limit the continuous improvement of maintenance performance. Currently, there is a lack of studies...

Neighbourhood environmental factors are associated with active lifestyle. Despite the considerable research that examined their relationship with elderly active lifestyle, the measures' reliability and validity attracted less attention. This pilot study aimed at examining the reliability and validity of eleven neighbourhood environmental factors hy...

As Malaysia's population is aging rapidly, and since there is no specific housing policy for the elderly, it is vital that neighborhoods meet the different needs of elderly for active aging to maintain their quality of life. This study aims to investigate the neighborhood environmental variables, the outcome active aging, and potential variables th...

In current era, the nature of business is ever-changing where communication and interaction between office workers are encouraged as the scope of work for office is expanding. Traditional offices with identical cubicles separated with panels are ineffective because not all workers are in the same activity mode at the same time. Providing and mainta...

As a developing country, Malaysia is undergoing a demographic transition from a high fertility and mortality rural society towards an industrialised society with low fertility and mortality rates. This transition involved an increased growth rate of elderly population. The number of elderly has risen from 1.4 million in 2000 to 2.1 million in 2010...

In Malaysia, most of the building managers faced problems in conducting maintenance operation due to unclear plan and unsystematic approach. Improper maintenance management and practices could affect the performance levels of the maintenance works and the productivity of the building users. This paper aims to examine the issues and challenges faced...

Concrete flat roof defects, such as water leakage, present a significant and common problem in large buildings, particularly in tropical countries, where rainfall is high. To monitor this condition, effective non-destructive test methods are required to detect problems at an early stage, especially hidden defects within the concrete roof, which are...

Building maintenance is essential in preserving buildings’ appearance and performance. It needs to upkeep the building performance to prolong its value and building life cycle. Malaysia is still lacking in managing cost for building operation and maintenance. It has been found that the cost for housing maintenance is high due to poor maintenance pr...

Sustainability is seen as a far-reaching issue now, and one which the facilities management [FM] profession cannot overlook. This paper explores current sustainable facilities management [SFM] knowledge and practice with specific focus on performance as part of a research focus toward proposing a sustainable FM performance management framework for...

Lack of preventive measure is currently the problem that implicates poor maintenance outcome. Scheduled maintenance is claimed as a maintenance strategy to tackle the problem. However, the effectiveness of scheduled maintenance can be greatly influenced by the length of predetermined maintenance interval. Thus, this paper aims to study the relation...

Purpose – Scheduled building maintenance requires appropriate and adequate spare parts to replace existing parts on a regular basis. Management of spare parts is seen as an important criterion to ensure the efficiency of scheduled maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to identify the contributors of spare parts management and investigate the re...

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...

In high-rise residential buildings, the quality of facilities management services is significant to the normal operation of the facilities. Unfortunately, lack of concern towards building maintenance, especially preventive maintenance, happens in domestic housing industry in Malaysia. Majority of the maintenance operations of condominiums suffer fr...

Built heritage constitute the very individuality of places hence to its identity. However, the built heritage in a small-scale town is nowadays subject to the triple threat of dilapidation, exhaustion and disappearance. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the building regulations, guidelines and policies with regard to sustaining the unique f...

Office workplaces today is now no longer only consisting of passive and fixed activity but also towards a more flexible environment activity. The number of office workplaces is hiking from day to day which leads to the increase of the office workers. The productivity will be improved by providing optimum physical environment. The physical environme...

This paper presents development of a model to be used to select the best option for building replacement in public ownership such as public library, stadium, hospital and school buildings. Buildings life cycle management should be transparent and cost efficient. Hence, decisions taken during the life cycle of the buildings should be based on clear...

Building condition assessment is growing and become more important in the context of the built environment and Asset Management in Malaysia. This paper presents the method and the use of a standard guidelines for Building Condition Assessment (BCA) as a tool to evaluate the physical condition of the building. The purpose of this paper is to underst...

Development in highland areas carries a high risk of erosion and an increased risk of landslides both during and after construction. Since 1990, more than 13 cases of highland development incidents in the Klang Valley have been reported in newspapers, of which a few involved deaths of people. Hence, this paper discusses the issues and challenges of...

Purpose – Maintaining a comfortable physical environment in the workplace is claimed to be vital as it will create a “healthier” building with optimum environmental conditions, which enable employees to be healthier and have a lower absenteeism rate, and hence be more productive. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to deal with the importance of phy...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential buildings elements in term of the cost for timber restoration works. Design/methodology/approach – The research employed the case studies methods with questionnaires surveys. Two case studies were chosen and questionnaire surveys were distributed to contractors and consultatio...

Buildings can be poorly maintained due to lack of understanding towards the role of building maintenance in achieving organisation's objective and long-term profitability. The maintenance management is the agent that provides maintenance services to fulfil the needs of the organisation. However, involvement of all the key participants is the key to...

POE is important to evaluate comfort level and satisfaction of building occupants because it indicates their productivity, health, and wellbeing. It is absolutely necessary to ensure building occupants are comfortable and satisfied about buildings’ indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Productivity may be interrupted due to building occupants’ discom...

Built heritage of immense architectural, historical and cultural values constitute as one of the most dominant characteristics that contribute significantly to the identity of places. However, the built heritage in smaller towns and cities in Malaysia have been relatively neglected and overlooked. In addition to the role in identity development of...

In this paper, the proposed Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based decision making framework was implemented and validated for its capability, applicability and validity in assisting building maintenance personnel to select the most appropriate procure- ment method. The decision making framework was developed based on AHP technique and principles....

The purpose of building refurbishment is to enhance the function of the buildings, to extend their useful life, and to improve their overall value. In the past few years, many historical buildings had been refurbished to enhance the building functionality as well as preserve and conserve the architectural and heritage values. Some of the historical...

Previous researchers have found that neighbourhood environmental factors play a significant role in promoting an active lifestyle among the elderly. Few studies in Malaysia have addressed this relationship. This article aims to explore the relationship between young elderly active lifestyle and the built environment. Through an extensive literature...

Each place possesses characteristics that confer on it a sense of place and identity through the meanings and values that they provide. The role of the physical built environment in place and identity development has not received adequate attention in built environment literature. This paper attempts to identify the unique and exceptional character...

Conference Objective and Philosophical Framework The International Conference on Sustainable Development is inspired from the critical challenge of human, environmental, and economic sustainability concerning the present and future generations in a global-scale context The 2° ICSD 2014 will be held at the Piazza di Spagna- Roma Eventi, Via Alibe...

The type of procurement method determines how the project would be managed. This is because project uncertainty could be found in the way that projects are awarded and howthe construction project is managed into a system of contract. Procurement methods also influenced the time performance of construction projects. Time would be affected by theflow...

The purpose of this paper is to implement and validate a decision making framework for building maintenance projects. The growing importance of maintenance sector not only in Malaysia but al- so increasingly globalized, the difficulty in selecting an appropriate procurement method and lack of research in this area provide an impetus for this resear...

This paper presents a study of selection of procurement method in building maintenance management for public universities in Malaysia through the use of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), particularly the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). There are many different types of procurement methods that have been developed to overcome the weaknesse...

Purpose – High-maintenance cost is the common issue in building industry due to low service quality of maintenance management in Malaysia. Lack of preventive measure is the problem that implicates poor maintenance performance. Scheduled maintenance is suggested to improve the maintenance performance. However, the effectiveness of scheduled maintena...

Office buildings are equipped with HVAC system to provide a comfortable working environment. However, the level of the occupants' productivity and comfort is highly influenced by the reliability of HVAC system's service. Thus, the proper maintenance of HVAC system is necessary to ensure the smooth operations of an organisation. This paper seeks to...

Sustainability of buildings is one of the main aims in the construction industry. In achieving sustainability, maintenance of buildings and its facilities, which include planning, implementation, and outcome of maintenance activities, becomes an important criterion. This paper aims to identify the significant characteristics of scheduled and condit...

Building maintenance costs are continuously increasing as a result of poor maintenance. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop solutions to reduce the maintenance costs. Various studies demonstrated that the characteristics of condition-based maintenance are directly related to the cost performance. Thus, this paper seeks to establish the...

Due to low service quality of maintenance management, high maintenance cost becomes a common issue in building industry of Malaysia. Lack of preventive measure is the problem that resulting poor maintenance performance. So, condition-based maintenance is introduced to improve the maintenance performance. Monitoring tools and equipment is seen as an...

Lack of preventive measure is currently the problem that implicates poor building maintenance performance and issue on sustainability of buildings in Malaysia. Whereby, preventive maintenance is an effective approach to enhance the reliability and quality of a system and its components. This study seeks to investigate the characteristics of prevent...

In Malaysia, building refurbishment is expected to become more important in the next five years. This is due to largest government allocations for refurbishment works in ninth and tenth Malaysian Plan and high demand for refurbishment works. The investigation also introduced the functions of integrative mechanisms, which consist of coordination dev...

Certification of buildings is one of the conditions set by the government to ensure that buildings are constructed to achieve the required standards. This intended to safeguard the interests of the parties involved, especially the buyers. To improve public service delivery while not ignoring the interests of those involved, government held a new sy...

The aim of this research is to identify suitable approaches in order to create awareness of the house buyers on how to prevent economic loss due to latent defects. Semi-structured interviews with fifteen respondents had been conducted. Findings showed that there are three suitable approaches namely Collateral Warranty, Latent Defect Insurance and C...

In order developers handing over a building to the client, the building must comply with the various rules and procedures set by the respective local authorities. Before submission for CCC can be carried out by the developer, it is necessary to get a certificate of completion for the building construction. For this purpose, a more effective system...

The uncertainty of refurbishment project is reflected in the difficulty of getting accurate design information during the design process. One of the factors contributed to uncertainty in refurbishment projects is degree of design knowledge that an architect have. The knowledge of the designers in refurbishment design could influence the completenes...

Building maintenance costs are increasing rapidly due to poor maintenance in the past. In this paper, attempts are made to identify the characteristics of scheduled maintenance. It has been established that the characteristics of scheduled maintenance always affect the cost performance. Therefore, this research aims to establish their relationships...

Purpose – In refurbishment design, the individual designer is the one who ultimately determines the quality and performance of a project, but not his or her organization. Hence, various specific attributes are essential in the designers undertaking refurbishment projects. This directly influences the refurbishment project performance. The aims of t...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to focus on identifying building elements with design defects and established the relationship between design defects and difficulties in carrying out maintenance works. Design/methodology/approach A total of four cases have been selected covering primary‐ and secondary‐level for both National and National‐type...

Purpose – A Building Surveyor (BS) is a professional who carries out building control functions and performance‐related assessments which require an organised approach. The profession is involved in preparing for physical development, supervision of construction quality and assessment of the physical condition of a building. However, the awareness...

The complexity of refurbishment projects is reflected in the difficulty in getting accurate design information during the design process. One of the factors contributing to the complexity in refurbishment projects is building legislation. The changing and updating of some of the building regulations by government has also affected the approval proc...

Conservation projects normally involve work that cannot accurately predetermine in terms of extent, specification, duration or cost. It was because conservation projects were unique and non-duplicate project which do not have precedent case to study. It was also fewer specialists in the sense of knowledge about the conservation projects. The aim of...

The building maintenance costs are rising rapidly from time to time due to poor maintenance in the past. In UK, total spending on building maintenance had a dramatically increase of 66% in the past 10 years. In Malaysia, the development plan allocation for repair and maintenance works in building sector increased from RM296 million during the Eight...

The Building Surveyor (BS) is a qualified person who performs Building Control works and other activities related to construction which involves an organised preparatory process of physical development, supervision of construction quality and Physical conditions of the building. BS plays a vital role in the building industry, especially in develope...