Hamzah Abdul-Rahman

• Professor at University of Malaya

Smarter future with blockchain technology and IoT : Feasible and sustainable solutions to reduce percentage of DOA due to covid-19 by using IoT and Blockchain

Feasible and sustainable solutions to reduce percentage of DOA due to covid-19 by using IoT.

The documentation used in the construction industry remains problems such as inadequate detail; confusing, conflicting and voluminous; coordination problems; insufficient information; erroneous information, and conflicting information. This research aims to study the potentials in improving documentation quality through project learning. A postal q...

Light, sweet crude oils are depleting, forcing oil and gas companies to explore and operate in increasingly deeper waters, remote geographical locations and harsher environmental conditions with higher safety risks. This paper analyzed the common misuse and errors of typical quantitative risk assessments (QRAs) during identification, assessment, ap...

Globalization creates opportunities for contractors to enter lucrative international markets yet international projects are exposed to more diverse and complex risks than domestic projects. Owing to vast uncertainties and complexities, international construction entry decisions are intricate. Although conventional Probability-Impact (P-I) risk mode...

Route planning for multiple destinations via a railway system (RS) is challenging, especially in a complex network with hundreds of stations and interchanges, resulting in a railway traveling salesman problem (RTSP), which is a variant of the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Limited attention has been devoted to solving the RTSP, despite the incre...

The construction industry involves many participants with different perspectives and requirements. Contracts can provide significant value, and yet ineffective contract management frequently leads to disputes. In practice, contracts are hardly reviewed, and contract management is limited. This study aims to investigate how firms can improve their i...

Failure to communicate effectively and poor project knowledge continue to plague the construction industry, particularly concerning delay management and cost control. This paper aims to empirically examine the influence of project communication management and project learning as preventive measures to mitigate time-cost overruns. Based on a compreh...

This paper describes the influence of organizational learning on risk management maturity (RMM) considering firm size as a moderating variable. Information acquisition, knowledge dissemination, shared interpretation, and organizational memory were used to measure the influence of organizational learning on RMM in 132 small and large construction fi...

This paper empirically studies the importance of managing design changes in dealing with time delay and cost overruns in construction projects. The main objective of this paper is to identify the causes of design changes and the implications on the Malaysian construction projects measured in terms of cost and time. It also aims to determine how rew...

Although there is an increasing trend of services being traded across borders, quantity surveying (QS) firms in the construction sector remain under-researched. The triggers for the increasing globalization of QS firms are not clear, nor how these triggers are perceived by managers at different levels. A questionnaire was administered in over 84 QS...

The railway system (RS) is becoming a necessity and is one of the popular choices of transportation for the public, especially for business practitioners and people living in urban areas or cities. The urbanization and population growth due to a rapid development of economy in major cities lead to a higher demand for urban rail transit and RS netwo...

The paper concentrates on International Development (ID) projects implemented in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. Some of the critical issues reported on these projects include failure of contractors and consultants to deliver goods and services, non-compliance issues on financial management / reporting practices, and project del...

Building construction projects worldwide routinely fail to meet their schedule and cost objectives. This paper focuses on design changes as the principal contributing factor to delay and cost overruns. Substandard project coordination and futile communication management are sustained problems with the construction industry, particularly as to the m...

Design changes and rework are inevitable in construction projects. Even though papers published in major journals have acknowledged design changes as a significant factor inhibiting construction project performance, there seems to be a limited studies in this domain to systematically synthesizing preceding studies. This paper reviewed papers publis...

Innovation has been known as one of the driving factors for continual growth of all firms. However, there is a dearth of scholarly effort addressing the relevance of innovation in the construction industry within a small-and-medium-enterprises (SMEs) setting. For this reason, the study aims to develop an innovation model that considers the effect o...

Railway and metro transport systems (RS) are becoming one of the popular choices of transportation among people, especially those who live in urban cities. Urbanization and increasing population due to rapid development of economy in many cities are leading to a bigger demand for urban rail transit. Despite being a popular variant of Traveling Sale...

Flow chart of proposed bee algorithm. (DOCX)

TSP solutions generated by the TSP solver and proposed algorithm in the experiments conducted. (DOCX)

Work-related stress in construction management can trigger impairment to employees’ psychological health, and thus affect project performance, but psychological disorders’ deleterious consequences on project performance have not received sufficient attention in the literature. This study aims to identify different types of psychological disorders i...

The increasing complexity of architectural design works refers to the need for high quality design solutions for overlapping activities through a shorter time period. Conventional network analysis techniques such as CPM could only represent sequential processes yet it is unable to handle a process which contains iterations so that it leads to the o...

Design changes have always been an innate feature of the construction industry. Despite the various project management techniques, many building construction projects still fail to achieve their time and cost objectives. This paper aims to focus on design changes as a major cause of time delays and cost overruns. It seeks to discuss the causing fac...

Humans spend one-third of their lives in the sleep environment; however, research on how its interior arrangement affects individuals’ preferences and perceptions of sleep quality has not been emphasised. We predict that the Form School Feng Shui model corresponds to a mother’s embrace, which may fit most users’ desired paradigm in a sleep environm...

Rehabilitation is a key-initiative undertaken to overcome a prevailing problem in Malaysia that is the abandonment of housing projects during construction. However, rehabilitation is a complex process and involves various parties. The purpose of this paper is to identify critical risks during the rehabilitation process and to evaluate capabilities...

Mobility is an essential aspect for tourists visiting large cities, thus, an effective and efficient route guide for tourists to move in, around and out of the cities is needed. This research aims to develop an LRT/MRT routing prototype by applying the Bee Colony Optimization and to pilot run this system to determine its functionality and workabili...

Japan Railway System Traveling Time Between Stations and Stations Information

The purpose of this paper is to determine knowledge utilization process and its influence on the performance of construction projects. Two cases of highway projects in Malaysia were used to develop a knowledge utilization model for managing time-related issues (i.e., factors causing project delay). The selected projects were similar in terms of siz...

The traditional scheduling tool Critical Path Method (CPM) exhibits limitations in computational insufficiency due to exhaustive enumeration. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) was therefore applied as a metaheuristic inspired by the ants behavior in foraging activities. A model development team was formed among construction engineers, IT professionals,...

Cloud computing has rapidly changed the conventional way information technology (IT) products and services are delivered. This study aims to identify the opportunities and dilemmas IT project managers are encountering in managing cloud projects, and to develop a system dynamics model to capture the complexity of cloud adoption. A questionnaire surv...

Design changes and rework are inevitable in construction projects. Even though papers published in major journals have acknowledged design changes as a significant factor inhibiting construction project performance, there seems to be a limited studies in this domain to systematically synthesizing preceding studies. This paper reviewed literature pu...

Housing industry is one of the most dynamic, risky, and challenging industries. In Malaysia, this industry has a poor reputation for managing risks, with many major projects failing to be completed within the allotted time. Due to the inherent risks involved in construction projects, it is essential to recognize the risks that cause problems associ...

This paper is a review on theories used in previous studies for decision making in project management studies. A mapping of most frequent theories being used forwarded for discussion. Theories identified are resource based theory, action based theory, utility theory, contingency theory, game theory, fuzzy theory, and reliability theory. Reviews fro...

There is a rapidly growing awareness amongst the public of facilities where the design incorporates green construction principles. This paper aims to study the quality function deployment (QFD) concept and technique when implemented in the construction industry with a particular focus on supporting green hospital design by identifying the end-user...

Evidence indicates that risks in IT projects which are not effectively managed and lack of identification and management during the life cycle of a project can contribute to their failures. Traditional risk assessment methods usually model risks with objective probabilities based on the expected frequency of repeatable events. Meanwhile, managers p...

A quality tool in achieving the required quality and customer satisfaction of the industrialized building system (IBS) is needed. Aiming to develop a general quality function deployment (QFD) model to enhance the adoption of IBS in housing projects, two sets of structured questionnaires were designed, where the first set for IBS house occupiers and...

Abstract—this paper is a literature reviews of risks and projects risk management for oil and gas industry. Overview of the oil and gas operations such as upstream and downstream activities forwarded and elaborated for further understanding. Literatures on risks, definition, types of risks forwarded in this paper to illustrate the importance of ris...

Abstract—this paper is a literature reviews of risks and projects risk management for oil and gas industry. Overview of the oil and gas operations such as upstream and downstream activities forwarded and elaborated for further understanding. Literatures on risks, definition, types of risks forwarded in this paper to illustrate the importance of ris...

Construction industries are exposed to wide array of risks, such as financial, design, and contractual ones, which might have a direct impact on their performance toward achieving the desired objectives. Risk Management is a proactive decision-making process used to minimize and manage the risks in the most efficient and appropriate manner. However...

Numerous researchers have determined building sustainability criteria relating to environmental performance, but the other two sustainability components - economic and social performance - have not been taken into consideration in an integrated and hierarchical manner. Existing sustainability assessment methods generally ignore economic and social...

The wide use of tensioned membrane structures (TMS) becomes prominent in many designs because of its aesthetic, ergonomic, and economical nature. Recently, TMS has been applied in the tropics with success, yet defects specific to this region have received little attention. Through a questionnaire survey of 890 uses and technicians of TMS in three d...

Daylighting is often integrated into a building as an architectural statement and for energy savings. However, the benefits from daylighting extend beyond architecture and energy savings. Solar bottle bulb is an invention that is highly effective and cost effective enough to be used in huge numbers for those without sources of interior lighting. Th...

The development of Malay reserve land is a nationwide issue which can be overcome through better understanding of the existing barriers. While many barriers have been examined, the challenges relating to land owner expectations and preferences has not been thoroughly examined. Using Kg Sungai Penchala in the capital city Kuala Lumpur as a case, thi...

Acoustic properties of residential building are often neglected by designers, developers, contractors, and even home buyers. Noises from both the internal and external environments affect occupants' daily lives. This motivates the current study which aims to identify all types of audible noises in Malaysian residential buildings and to determine th...

In the attempt to reshape the future landscape of the construction industry in Malaysia, there is a need to address the increasing concern of ethical issues prevailing in the industry. The way forward is to improve ethics in the industry and it should start from the way we educate the construction professionals. This paper discusses the research on...

Malaysia Railway System traveling time between stations.

With the rapid urbanization and globalization, developing countries contractors start to venture overseas. These contractors are exposed to various types of risks especially external risks. Although it is well known that organizational culture has impact on decisions, yet, the effect of organizational culture on international bidding decisions in c...

The integration of vegetated architecture has evolved from gardening, aesthetic design, or artistic expression, to an indoor element named iVGS providing fashion function for the indoor environment. The aim of this study is to identify characteristics of commonly used indoor plants in tropics, and to determine the advantages and disadvantages of iV...

Software development failures frequently emerge as a result of the failure to understand and identify risks. The aim of this paper is to identify the most salient risk factors during a software development project lifecycle, in terms of occurrence likelihood and impacts on cost overrun. A questionnaire survey was circulated to 2000 software develop...

Knowledge management processes are important to achieve better performance and development in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of knowledge utilization in enhancing project performance. A conceptual framework of knowledge utilization was developed through the review of relevant literature. The framework regards know...

Learning across projects is a vital part of avoiding the repetition of mistakes. The temporary nature of projects magnifies the need to determine the process of inter-project learning and knowledge transfer. A hierarchical model is proposed comprising four dimensions of inter-project learning and their indicators. Data were collected through a ques...

The facilities management industry is growing fast due to the increasing importance of quality, value for money, and effective utilization of the workplace. However, the implementation and development of facilities management in Malaysia has been relatively slow due to a lack of understanding and education. The aim of this study is to identify the...

Purpose – Conflict was recognized as a major cause of inefficiency and limited performance of construction projects. Factors pertaining to conflict in construction are vast; however, there have been less recognition of these factors in international construction projects. The purpose of this paper is to provide in-depth understanding of conflict in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the measurement constructs of learning within construction projects' milieu. The literature indicated some mechanisms of learning in projects under four aspects, namely knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, team action to learn, and learning support. The empirical study attempts to verify whether...

Late payment and nonpayment is explicitly recognized as a widespread problem in the construction sector and recurs in project after project. Although the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act was enacted in 2012 by the Parliament of Malaysia to ease timely and regular payment, it does not apply to a construction contract entered into b...

The literature on innovation, in the context of small construction firms, is scattered and still remain in its embryonic stage in the development of theories and models. The contribution of inter-firm relationships to innovation and organizational performance in these firms are examined here through 159 survey data from Malaysia. We find that prior...

Purpose: This paper highlights the current level of professional ethics standards in the construction industry in a developing economy and how ethics influences the quality of construction projects. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey and interviews were conducted on a selected sample from the construction industry in Malaysia, whic...

A foreign contractor can resort to a partnering or joint-venture strategy with a host contracting firm to bid for a major international construction project. This paper presents a case study in the Bahrain FORMULA-1 Circuit (BFC) project focusing mainly on its tendering and construction stages, which is lacking in literatures. Findings illustrate t...

Although the notion of Three-Dimensional (3-D) Textbook promises a lot of potential benefits to the teaching and learning in environmental education (EE), research on this subject is relatively scarce in the literature. There is limited information on how to transform physical settings into pedagogical tools for EE. In this article, the authors add...

International projects involve both uncertainties raised domestically and external risks in international transactions. Through a questionnaire survey and case studies among architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms operating in the Gulf, this study found 36.5% external risk factors that should be contemplated before the award of con...

This paper aims to introduce the nano-toxicology in engineering and built environment, serving as a health implication for the myriad potentials and opportunities in the development of advanced nano-materials in building and construction. Beyond the excitement on the prospects envisaged by the emerging field, looking for answers to uncertainty on h...

The selection of proper risk management tools and techniques is critical for better decision-making. Because very few studies scrutinize the use of a workshop as a risk management approach, this paper aims to explore how a risk management workshop can be effectively used in managing project risks, by studying a risk management workshop that was con...

Most of the current construction risk assessment tools deliver unsatisfactory results because the prerequisite for their effective applications rely on the availability of high quality data especially during the early stage of a project. Unfortunately, such data are limited, ambiguous or even not exist due to the great uncertainty inherent in const...

Although the notion of Three-Dimensional (3-D) Textbook promises a lot of potential benefits to the teaching and learning in environmental education (EE), research on this subject is relatively scarce in the literature. There is limited information on how to transform physical settings into pedagogical tools for EE. In this article, the authors add...

Different sizes and arrangements of solar bottle bulbs might greatly affect the lighting delivered and there is no general agreement on the best interior bottle exposure levels. This study was undertaken to examine the lighting performance of three prototype solar bottle bulbs and to compare their performance at three different interior bottle expo...

Construction projects in Malaysia involved prevailing risks that impact the performance of project embodies management triangle (i.e. time, cost & quality). A mature risk management approach would be appropriate to overcome these risks. The organizational maturity attempts, in its main goal, to gain higher performance in different project managemen...

Effective risk management can bring greater rewards to project performance by enhancing productivity. The objectives of this study are to identify the major risks associated with the Malaysian construction industry and to evaluate the practical measures that the various local construction industry players would take to respond to those risks. A mix...

Abandoned of housing projects during construction is a prevailing problem that the housing sector in Malaysia has been experiencing since 1980s. This paper aims to highlight the causes and impacts of abandoned housing projects, and various initiatives to rehabilitate these projects. Factors pertaining to projects abandonment can be categorized into...

The issue of professional ethics plays an important role in quality-related problems in a construction project. This paper highlights the current level of professional ethics standard in the construction industry and how ethics influences the quality of construction projects. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the construction industry in Mala...

The construction industry has a vast impact on the environment and the economy. Construction project performance requires a focus on increasing the resource efficiency and reducing the impact on the environment during the construction lifecycle. This on-going research is addressed towards the need of improving construction project performance by cr...

Current models do not provide numerical solutions to how much companies should invest in a particular cost of control (COC) activities. Therefore, most companies experience difficulties in balancing COC activities and failure costs. The aim of this paper is to assess the relative importance of COC activities and develop a strategic decision-aid fra...

Several affordable housing programs have been introduced by the government to achieve the objectives of several Malaysia Plans; however, the success of the housing programs has been reduced due to readily reported quality problems and defects. This research aims to identify the types of defects in affordable housing and determine what is causing th...

While conforming on the findings of prior researches regarding quality cost system in building companies, current research successfully illustrates the contractors' perceptions on the importance of the quality cost system and the barriers that may constrain the implementation of the system for recording and collecting quality cost data. A postal an...

In 2010, it was reported that there are over 45,339 units of abandoned houses in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. This is situation has brought adverse implication to house buyers and the national housing delivery system. The aim of this study is to identify the relevant risks in managing abandoned housing project and formalized the ways to manage...

Changes and uncertainties are inevitable in the construction industry so that contractors have to find ways to improve themselves in all aspects in order to enhance their competitiveness in tendering as it determines their survival in the industry. It is believed that experiences and knowledge of past projects have the potential to improve the comp...

Solar technology is becoming increasingly popular. For example, the production of solar cells quadrupled in the 1999-2004 period, with a capacity of four gigawatts worldwide. Renewable energy including solar power produces few or no harmful emissions and it is becoming increasingly important to exploit it in the future. This paper presents a litera...

Risks as uncertain conditions with negative consequences on a software project could increase the failure rate of a project if it is ignored. To identify the effectiveness of risk management strategies, a questionnaire survey among over 1000 software professionals was conducted. Post Hoc Multiple Comparison Test and Kendal’s non-parametric test wer...

The positioning of equipment on a construction site may change in different construction phases, different environments, and different types of end products, which greatly influence the decision of the site planning engineer who seeks to maximize the construction efficiency by minimizing the friction from the site layout. This study aims to acquire...

Middle East possesses a strong spending power that few other economies can contest, presenting greater medium to long-term opportunities than most other parts of the world, albeit the downturn in Dubai. The lack of study on risk management for Malaysian firms venturing abroad especially in the Middle East Gulf region has caused many to suffer losse...

Site layout planning is a significant but relatively ignored work on construction site, which has been treated improperly as somewhat routine. It is known that the complex interrelationship of material, equipment, laborers, space, environment, assess road, surrounding buildings, and building types affect the productivity and efficiency of a constru...

In the demand for improved procurement methods, the design-and-build approach has become prevalent in the construction industry as a fast track strategy. However, the quality issues in design-and-build projects raise the alarm for attention. Competency of project managers in quality management of design-and-build projects may be questionable so tha...

Many parties in the construction industry claim that codes of professional ethics can help mitigate the unethical conduct of civil engineers and improve the ethical level amongst construction players. However, the fact is, even though most organisations have their own codes of ethics, there still are many instances of unethical conduct in the const...

Quality management is a management function that ensures the quality of the products, services and/or operation processes of an organization. It contributes to the competitiveness and maintains the sustainability of the organization. This paper reviews the constructs of practices of quality management adopted by researchers. Based on the literature...

Earned value analysis (EVA) is a well-known project management tool for monitoring and forecasting the project performance such as time and cost. Despite the benefits found in the manufacturing industry, EVA has not been widely implemented in the Malaysian construction industry. This study is aimed to determine the advantages of EVA over other proj...

This research explores preliminarily the practices of quality management, management commitment in quality management, and quality management implementation problems in construction projects in the context of Malaysian construction industry. The research applies semi-structured interview approach with twelve project management practitioners. The fi...

In infrastructure projects, even though both value management (VM) and risk management (RM) are widely accepted as tools for effective project management, they have never been synthetically practiced.To combine the two processes within a single project is practical and logical when both methods share the same resources. Both VM and RM are systemati...

It is the time to understand the reasons why the quality failures are keep taking place in the building construction projects in Malaysia. This paper illustrates the contractors’ perceptions about the common quality failures related to building construction in Malaysia. A postal and email surveys were undertaken on Malaysian building companies to c...

The main motivation behind this study is to ascertain the factors that inhibit and facilitate knowledge sharing among fragmented firms in a construction industry context. By and large, the augmentation of small and medium enterprises (SME) vis-à-vis to the tapering of the large ones causes fragmentation of construction industry. With the lack of co...

Several success criteria (SC) and categorization models have been introduced and studied in the previous decades to address the issue of project success. However, most of these models have failed to align success criteria with company's success in the long-term. This paper aims at proposing a framework to categorize project success for building pro...

In the past decades, the rapid development of building energy efficiency technologies in the world has gradually deepened people's recognition on this concept in Malaysia, a fast developing economy in the tropical zone. The rapid growth of energy use has raised concerns over problems in supply world wide. This has caused the exhaustion of energy re...

Financial issues in construction projects lead to serious consequences that may retard the development of a project and influence the overall economical condition of a country. This paper addresses the issues of financial-related delays in construction projects. Aiming to determine the major causes of financial-related problems leading to construct...

The subject of project success has caught the attention of researchers for the last five decades. The long list of project success factors indicates that there are no common denominators for project success. It also indicates that there was no agreement on the definition of success. The aim of this review paper is to classify relevant literature on...

This study introduces the day lighting related solar concentration devices such as light pipes (or tubular daylight guidance systems), optical fibers for light transport, conventional solar concentrators and luminescent solar concentrators (LSC). The principles of study, advantages and disadvantages for application of these day lighting related dev...

There is a perception that majority of quality-related issues are caused by human factors. The issue of professional ethics plays an important role in quality-related problems in a construction project. This paper highlights the current level of professional ethics standard in the construction industry and how ethics influences the quality of const...

Normal luminescent solar concentrators (LSC) have a great limitation in their light transportation because the light produced by the recently reported LSCs is not a point light source. In order to enable LSCs to use optical fibers as the effective remote light transport media, a new design of LSC, which uses three color luminescent fibers for solar...

The Beijing National Aquatics Center played a key role in the 2008 Olympics. It was a ground-breaking project in many ways, with its highly complex and irregular polyhedron steel space frame clad with ethylene tetrafluoroethylene membrane pillows - designed to resemble a 'water cube' - setting new standards for design and construction technology. T...