Faridah Ismail

• Associate Professor (Honorary) at MARA University of Technology

This paper presents the operationalisation of safety culture for the Malaysian construction organisations. Operationalisation is the process of converting a concept into a measure. This measure can be a variable, constant or scale depending upon the situation. Hence, operationalisation will enable the concept to be uniformly understood as there is...

Cultural and behavioural differences are the main aspects of reluctance to practise proper safety in the workplace in Malaysia. This is because foreign labourers have monopolised the Malaysian construction sector at the operational level since the early 1980s. Accordingly, the current study examined the key factors of reluctance in practising prope...

Foreign workers served to alleviate the labour shortage in the Malaysian construction industry. High dependence on their workforce has elevated negative impacts on the social and behavioural perspective. Nevertheless, cultural and behavioural differences have appeared as the primary sources of their unwillingness to practise proper safety procedure...

Foreign labours workforce has long been dominating the Malaysian construction industry at the operational level as numerous occupational safeties literatures have reflected most of construction accidents are caused by poor human behaviours. Undeniably, the existence of proper safety behaviour would influence good safety compliance among the constru...

Foreign workers issue needs to be addressed urgently as most of the industry sectors in Malaysia are still heavily dependent on them. Therefore, cultural and behavioural differences have appeared as the primary sources of their unwillingness to practise proper safety procedure. The aim of this research is to access the fundamental factors influenci...

Vast developing countries like Malaysia are often linked to an excellent economic growth and rapid construction development. Therefore, the operational safety issues have always been a hot topic in the construction sector due to the near misses and accidents are still at an alarming rate. Although various studies and initiatives have been made to r...

Malaysia was enumerated as the realm that retains a high quality of infrastructure facilities among the other ASEAN countries, and the number of infrastructure projects is progressively developed to offers a virtuous cordiality to the citizen. Inevitably, the infrastructure projects are barely devoted to the complex project selection decision phase...

Civil engineering work deals with nature and thus, is exposed to enormous discrepancies due to nature’s complexity compared to building works which are more certain. In the Malaysian construction industry, it is generally accepted that civil engineers administer civil engineering contracts and prepare tender documents. The Civil Engineering Prelimi...

Civil engineering work deals with nature and thus, is exposed to enormous discrepancies due to nature’s complexity compared to building works which are more certain. In the Malaysian construction industry, it is generally accepted that civil engineers administer civil engineering contracts and prepare tender documents. The Civil Engineering Prelimi...

This paper reviews the current practice and challenges of community participation on waste segregation program in Jasin Malacca since 2015-2017. The Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing (Act 672) which came into force on 1st September 2011, is Governments’ effort to provide a systematic, coordinated, effective and efficient solid waste manag...

The aspects in a completed residence or house should able to enhance the quality of a building as well as to provide safety to the occupants. It has become increasingly important to evaluate housing property for many reasons. The attempt to enhance the aspect of safety planning in developing low cost houses is still neglected and one of the reasons...

This research explored the environmental constraints based on landscape architect’s views in selecting urban trees. Two objectives have been formulated (iurban views of the landscape architect are pertinent in tree selection practice. The findings of this research will contribute to practise improvement in selecting urban tree species by landscape...

Civil Engineering sector found to be heavily influenced by the non-standard practices to establish Preliminaries, which is an integral part of Bills of Quantities in the conventional construction contracts. The tendency to adopt various methods resulted in a lack of awareness of important elements or items. Therefore, the change of practice was art...

The construction sector has lagged behind regarding quality development. Though quality issues have become the major concern in the construction industry, there is an absence of the theory that propagates construction quality which lead to quality performance. This paper discusses the adaptation criteria for the Malaysian contractors that could be...

Urban trees are living organisms and vital elements of a city’s infrastructure; thus, they should be considered at every stage of planning design and development. In Malaysia, rapid changes in the environment have indirectly influenced the roadside tree condition such as fallen trees. This is reflected with the statistic increment of public complai...

Street trees are an important part of city development. Proper tree management provides conducive environment for socialization. Previous research revealed the social factors and hazards associated with urban street trees but the elements that influence was not known. The objectives are: to investigate the elements of the social factors and to dete...

Designers in Malaysia are beginning to feel the existence and growing of stress levels at the workplace due to high pressure and competitive working environment. Designer profession is to create inspire designs that sometimes lead to stress and affect their work performance. Moreover, stress can cause poor planning, lack of communications and inter...

OHSAS 18001 was proposed to promote an organisation manages occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks and further improved work operations. However, the positive efforts by the government of Malaysia to improve the implementation, use and acceptance level of OHSAS 18001 are still not remarkable. Hence, the objectives of this paper are to determin...

The absence of success factors focusing on the Industrialised Building System (IBS) process of project implementation initiates this study. Therefore, the aim of this research is to establish the success factors within the initial works of the IBS process of project implementation. Comprehensive literature review revealed that success factors are;...

Barriers may restrict the mobility of people with disabilities (PWDs) in a building. This research identifies the effectiveness of accessibility in commercial complexes in the Klang valley in the state of Selangor Malaysia. Data were based from semi structured interviews and site audit with four groups of respondents of different type of disability...

Roadside planting is a row of trees along the road which provides shades for people in urban areas. Proper management practices among the local authorities will improve the quality of life and human well-being. Unhealthy trees may cause problems to the road users that result from the lack of monitoring by local governing bodies. 200 respondents fro...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initial information related to the roles and competencies required for a project manager who managed IBS construction projects in the Malaysian construction industry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the project managers who have experience in managing an IBS construction project. The fi...

As many developed country practise, the function of the infrastructure is to connect the each region of Malaysia holistically and infrastructure is an investment network projects such as transportation water and sewerage, power, communication and irrigations system. Hence, a billions allocations of government income reserved for the sake of the inf...

The Malaysian Government has put a great effort in promoting the usage of industrialized building system (IBS) in the construction industry. However, the implementation is still far from the expected outcome. Even many advantages have been offered by IBS implementation; the stakeholders still hold many negative perceptions towards its applicability...

This study explored the role of landscape architect in choosing trees for urban fabric. Two objectives have been formulated (i) to examine the process in selecting tree species among landscape architects and (ii) to determine the relationship between process and environmental constraints in selecting tree species for urban fabric. The findings show...

The escalator is very crucial to transport a person from one place to another. Nevertheless, there are many cases recorded the accidents in relation to escalator. These may occur due to lack of maintenance which leads to systems breakdown, poor safety practices, wear and tear, users' negligence and others. Thus, proper maintenance systems need to b...

Purpose There are rising issues with the delivery performance of Malaysian low-cost housing (LCH) because the occupants are inclined to perceive safety hazards. Among the safety issues raised during the occupancy period in LCH are structural instability and falling building fragments. Without defining the occupants’ requirements in the early housin...

IBS application had claimed to offer a faster construction, high quality, cost saving, cleaner and safer construction site. However, several challenges in management during the construction phase had been identified by researchers. This paper aims to analyze the challenges and issues arise in managing IBS construction projects. The challenges and i...

Trees in urban areas are an invaluable resource. Careful consideration and attention should be given to tree species selection. “Right tree at the right place” is the key to get the benefits offered by the tree. Objectives have been formulated as follows (i) to investigate the selection of tree species at selected local councils (ii) to analyse the...

Stress is inevitable in any types of occupation and career. It is recognised as major managerial and economic issues which contribute to employee turnover and poor performance. There is a need to understand how to reduce the effects to employees. This study aims to determine the stress relationship between employees in commercial complex facilities...

Heritage is very important to a society and country as it reflects the true identity of the country and creates a sense of wonder about the people and culture that produced it. Unlike new building works, the heritage conservation works are unique and distinctive individually, which do not have a precedent case to study. The existence of complexity...

Behaviour-based safety (BBS) is an approach associated with safety management system, aimed towards bringing about improvement in safety and health performances. In application, BBS is a bottom-up approach where the primary attention is directed at specific safety-related behaviours typically performed by frontline employees. BBS is commonly implem...

The preliminaries bill for quantities of a construction project provides general information, mandatory instructions, and setup running costs for a construction contract period. The bill is crucial and arbitrary in nature. The aim of this study is to verify the percentage difference between preliminaries of building and civil infrastructure works....

Street trees are an important part of city development. Proper tree management provides conducive environment for socialization. Previous research revealed the social factors and hazards associated with urban street trees but the elements that influence was not known. The objectives are: to investigate the elements of the social factors and to dete...

The construction sector has lagged behind regarding quality development. Though quality issues have become the major concern in the construction industry, there is an absence of the theory that propagates construction quality among contractors which lead to quality performance. This paper discusses the adaptation criteria for the Malaysian contract...

Preliminaries and contractual matters are in fact the risks that deal with non-trade elements. It is a common practice in Malaysia that Preliminaries are prepared based on general description i.e. usually based on Conditions of Contract or project specific and priced in lump sum amount. Complexity is part of the uncertainties exists in the construc...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the forms of economic challenges for the joint venture infrastructure projects. Economic challenges are divided into internal and external challenges. The methodology applied is quantitative approach. The outcome of the research indicates that the critical internal economic challenge is vague financial do...

Roadside planting is a row of trees along the road which provides shades for people in urban areas. Proper management practices among the local authorities will improve the quality of life and human well-being. Unhealthy trees may cause problems to the road users that result from the lack of monitoring by local governing bodies. 200 respondents fro...

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to identify the financial sharing limitation in contractor’s infrastructure project in joint venture implementation. Methodology: Using the quantitative method, the questionnaires, constructed based on external and internal variables were distributed to the selected respondents. The analysis of the data is...

The general building conditions in low cost housing are part of human’s quality indicator. However, there are rising issues on the safety performance of the housing since the occupants are inclined to perceive safety hazards. Therefore, this paper explores the concept of Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) as safety performance tool. This research cond...

The function of safety is to locate and define an operational error that allows accident to occur. Previous research suggested that this function could essentially be achieved in two ways—by studying both the causes of accidents and the effectiveness of known controls being utilized. This research draws from the successful experiences of accident p...

Continuous improvement in the purchasing process increased the quality of project performance. Hence, clients’ participation in the purchasing process is essential because it influence the clients’ budget and satisfaction and the quality of construction products. This research attempts to identify the clients’ involvement in the purchasing process...

Public housing is affordable living houses for low-income group and to overcome the issues of illegal squatters in towns and cities area. Within limited space of land, a multi-storey low-cost building will enable to provide many housing units to be built. This research aims to highlight and analyze issues faced by the management of low-cost public...

The level of satisfaction with the residential environment affects the quality of life. Thus, the aim of this paper is to measure the quality of life on the current low cost residential environment under the management of City Hall Kuala Lumpur (CHKL). A questionnaire survey was distributed among occupants of public low cost residential. The findin...

This paper aims to encourage initiatives designed to improve the quality of life and encourage citizens to play their role in the urban environment. Using the SWOT analysis, policies to fight urban poverty must draw on the considerable social capital that neighbourhood represent. According to these findings, these organisations make significant con...

When it comes to the design stage, being proactive is a challenge for development of every safety and environmental management system. Assessing the demolition risks either safety or environmental usually limits to the site and workers whereas the public and surrounding area are usually being neglected. This paper briefly reviews Malaysia's demolit...

Implementing Industrialised Building System (IBS) to the construction industry has the potential of contributing to sustainable construction development. However, since the introduction of IBS and its promises to improve the current construction method and scenario in Malaysia, the public perception towards its applicability is becoming an issue. T...

The general building conditions in low cost housing are part of human's quality indicator. However, there are rising issues on the safety performance of the housing since the occupants are inclined to perceive safety hazards. Therefore, this paper explores the concept of Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) as safety performance tool. This research cond...

IBS is a construction system promoted by the Malaysian government in order to encourage the systematic construction process. Until now, the IBS construction project still consists of a conventional construction method. Due to the combination of these two methods, IBS project can be assumed as multi-complex task and project. Scholars agreed that the...

IBS is a construction system promoted by the Malaysian government in order to encourage the systematic construction process. Until now, the IBS construction project still consists of a conventional construction method. Due to the combination of these two methods, IBS project can be assumed as multi-complex task and project. Scholars agreed that the...

The delivery performance of the low cost housing is questioned since the occupants are prone towards safety hazards in the housing complex, such as structural instability and falling building fragments. Without defining the occupants’ requirements for the development of low cost housing, the prevailing safety factors are hard to be determined. This...

Many questions rose on defining the implementation of Facilities Management (FM) in Malaysia. To date, the FM player only provided services sufficiently without the desires to enhance their services by taking into account the standard of practice which should form the basis. The extent of the services in Facilities Management based companies in Mal...

The construction process of IBS projects consolidated with many issues, which required management by a competent construction manager. The purpose of this paper is to investigate initial information related to the competency of construction managers in the context of the IBS construction projects in the Malaysian construction industry. Preliminary...

This paper attempts to investigate the current literature on behavioural based and culture change approach on workplace safety. It draws on current publications and the findings of a two recent research study; Safety Culture and Behavioural Based Study Approach. A semi-structured interview and questionnaire survey approach methods was adopted for b...

The construction environment has lagged behind other industries in improving the quality. Though it is a major contributor to the economy of any country, it faces the problem of high fragmentation, instability, low productivity, poor quality and lack of standards. This paper aim to investigate the quality issues in Malaysian construction environmen...

There are several issues in managing IBS construction projects which lead to delays, poor qualities and cost overrun. This paper aims to analyze the issues in managing the construction phase of IBS projects that reflects IBS as a non efficient implementation. The issues can be categorized into pre construction, construction and post construction ph...

OHSAS 18001 was proposed to promote an organisation manage occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks and further improved work operations. However, the positive efforts by the government of Malaysia to promote the implementation, usage and acceptance level of OHSAS 18001 are still not remarkable. Hence, the objectives of this paper are to determi...

Site management practicing the best method for Industrialised Building System (IBS) construction leads to favourable environment. This research aims to develop an integrated site management system improvement; the team work, the workplace and the materials & machinery for IBS construction. Questionnaire survey was distributed among 314, IBS contrac...

This paper describes a convenient method for parameter identification of induction motor. Experimental tests of induction motor, namely dc, no-load and blocked-rotor tests are conducted to identify the motor parameters. To substantiate the validity of the equivalent circuit parameters which are deduced from experimental tests, these characteristics...

Modifying behavior and to encourage safe behavior is the key element of a good safety program. Defining safety culture, based on behavioural factors frees us to include a host of behaviours as part of the puzzle that creates the cognitive construct of organisational culture. Hence, the objective of this paper is to identify the behavioural factors’...

The attempt to enhance the safety aspects in low cost houses (LCH) development is still neglected and one of the reason that may contribute to this factor is due to its low price value. Hence, Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is adopted to assess the safety requirements as this study is aimed to develop a benchmark for safety aspects for LCH in Mala...

Unsatisfactory Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) in the construction industry has turned out to be an issue as it contributes to numbers of incidents and fatality to the construction players and public. Previous research suggested that early introduction of safety & health elements within the project implementation contributed towards minimising t...

The environment is an important agent in safety culture development. No empirical research has been conducted among the Malaysian and it is hoped that this study will contribute to the progress. This paper aims to evaluate the influence of environment – behaviour factor's towards safety culture development. Questionnaire survey and semi-structured...

Human behaviour is a major contributor of construction accidents revealed by many occupational safeties literatures. The presence of good safety behaviour does reflect good safety compliance. Safety issue cannot be tackle effectively without interference of employers with a particular pattern of behaviours as important criteria needed to change emp...

Stress at work in commercial complexes could be the host of adverse outcomes for both employees and organisation. The objectives of the study are to determine the relationship between the facilities manager and the occupational stressor. The impact of stress to their health and job performance refers to the physical, emotional and behavioural signs...

Different levels of management influence safety practices within organizations in a different ways. This paper revealed on the interpretation of a face-to-face semi-structured interviews conducted among eleven (11), Grade G7 construction companies represented by three key personnel; Senior Management, Safety Officer and Site Supervisor. The aim is...

Physical barriers may restrict people with disabilities (PWDs) movement in building. This study identifies the effectiveness of accessibility in commercial complex in the state of Selangor Malaysia. Data were collected from semi structured interviews with four groups of respondents with different type of disability and on-site access audit. The fin...

The significance of having a safe performance in residential property is because it leads to the building sustainability. In relation to the safety aspects in the performance of low cost housing, many cases have shown that most are fail to meet their objectives right from the moment they were declared complete. This paper aims to compare the safety...

Designer job routine is to stimulate and produce new-creative ideas that sometimes causes stress and affect work performance. This paper aims to identify the causes and effects of workplace stress amongst designers. Questionnaire was distributed among 500 designers in Klang Valley. With the response rate of 38% of the samples, findings show that th...

In recognition to the importance of management, this paper aims to establish the management factors contributing to successful implementation of IBS projects from the contractor's point of view. With a response rate of 12%, findings from the questionnaire survey disclose that good working collaboration, effective communication channel and team memb...

Translating culture formation into behavioural terms helps people to understand how the process works. People learn more from behaviours than from printed statements and company policies. Hence, the objective of this paper is to identify the behavioural factors’ characteristics of safety culture for Malaysian construction companies. The sample for...

Since the First Malaysia Plan (1966–1970), there is an emergence development of low-cost housing construction in Malaysia that intentionally acts as an approach to resettle of squatters or illegal residential. In the current economic situation, there is a growing demand from residents for a better and safer housing. Evidence shows that safety is a...

This paper examines the briefing process of construction projects where the two fundamental requisites are identification of clients' requirements and translating them into building form. The attributes of the client as the key project participant during briefing is vital to ensure the preparation of accurate briefs. The client attributes investiga...

Stress at work in commercial complex sould be the host of adverse outcomes for both employees and organisaion.The objective of this studies are to determine the relationship between facilities manager and the occupational stressor.Data collection is through questionnaire survey and semi structured interview witghin Klang valley,Kuala Lumpur Malaysi...

This research investigates the concept of the Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) approach, the steps involved and the problems encountered. A case study approach comprising of the Oil and Gas companies practicing BBS had been chosen. The methods to retrieve information includes the semi-structured interview, questionnaires survey and site observation....

This paper identifies the level of satisfaction on present facilities provided in shopping malls in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Literature review, data collection on case study access audit, selected interviews and questionnaires combined with details from observations and photographs were used to explore on how to achieve friendly and accessible space...

Industrialised Building System (IBS) involves relationships between various organizations, with the evolution of many specialised roles and embedded relationships. A good supply chain integration practice will lead to good integration among players. However, the fragmentation and adversarial relationship scenario in the IBS Malaysian construction i...

This research presents the methodological development of a framework for promoting safety culture for the Malaysian construction companies. There is no framework that has that been established in this context. The development will enable professionals to quantify and analyze safety culture in a consistent manner. A mixed methodology of qualitative...