Sarajul Fikri Mohamad

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia | UTM

The growing global concerns on sustainability and the vitality of our planet is subject to a strong implication of the construction industry and its significant global value chain. Previous studies show the impact of the construction industry to the earth while a major concern on sustainability knowledge and intellectual capability to mitigate the...

The construction industry has become more digital and the traditional methods of construction activities are gradually becoming outdated. In this era of digital construction, various information and communication technologies have been developed and deployed to the site for the management and control of construction activities including cost manage...

This paper aims to examine the constraints of value management (VM) adoption and implementation in Nigeria’s construction industry with a view to proffering possible measures that could tackle and minimise these constraints and eventually facilitate VM usage in the industry. The study adopts a survey approach. Data collection was based on a structu...

Cost and time overrun in construction projects is a global phenomenon that has become a reoccurring decimal in most projects. Several researchers have developed various methods and tools for effective management and control of construction projects to keep projects within budget and estimated duration but despite the available techniques and techno...

Demand for green hospital buildings is increasing. While some hospital buildings were designed and constructed as green buildings, many hospital buildings have been upgraded to comply with the green requirements. Green hospital buildings require green maintenance practice. In comparison, procuring green buildings is easy as compared to green mainte...

The local authority in Malaysia is the giant holder of public assets and they are obligated in performing better management to ensure the assets are of prominent quality to serve the needs of the local people. The local authority should take initiatives in having the right systems in managing and maintaining their assets. Therefore, the purpose of...

The building design has drawn great attention in recent years because of its large impact on many aspects of the functionality and maintenance activities in high-rise residential buildings (HRRB). These buildings include innovative and exciting design solutions that increase project complexity and produce substantial unexpected design deficiencies....

Real-time control of on-site construction cost has been a major concern as every client demand value for the money invested in procuring a construction project. The design team and other stakeholders in the construction industry face the challenges posed by the ever-increasing complexity of construction facilities , and the demands of clients to me...

Nowadays, microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) has received great attention for its potential in construction and geotechnical applications. This technique has been used in biocementation of sand, consolidation of soil, production of self-healing concrete or mortar, and removal of heavy metal ions from water. The products of M...

Naturally active compounds are usually contained inside plants and materials thereof. Thus, the extraction of the active compounds from plants needs appropriate extraction methods. The commonly employed extraction methods are mostly based on solid-liquid extraction. Frequently used conventional extraction methods such as maceration, heat-assisted e...

Housing plays an essential role in the wellbeing of people because it is the only place where people can fall back to relaxed and re-calibrated to put body and soul together. Thus, this paper been part of the more extensive study is on prospects and challenges of green materials an alternative material to provide housing for the low-income earners...

Value management (VM) has over the years gained acceptance by various countries all over the world as a tool towards achieving value for money for clients. Ongoing research and development into value management adoption and implementation within the construction industries of developing countries is on the run. This has made researchers investigate...

There is a continuous rise in the implementation of information-driven technology in construction, especially for effective control and management of construction resources. However, the enormous opportunities that these technologies provide have not been adequately utilized for construction cost management. There are so many innovations in the cur...

Construction industry is information-oriented industry and the increasing demands for cost effectiveness, process efficiency, and apt conveyance of information for management action resulted to several innovations in the industry. Mobile technology is one of the new trends of industrial innovations which has altered present day business operations...

Employee turnover has always been the real issue in the fields of organisational behaviour, human resource management and labour economics. The issue of why people leave their workplace is always a key concern for human resource managers in various industries and their organisations because of the costly effect that comes from it. Although the vast...

Construction Cost control is an integral part of Cost management processes of Construction projects. Project cost management involves all the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, Funding, managing and controlling costs so that the project can be scheduled for completion within the approved budget. Cost overrun is a majo...

Over the last few years, building defects is major concern in Malaysian construction industry. Design mistake or building flaw define as a defect which reduces building value and make a hazardous situation. A Building defect arises due to various reason, such as low handiwork or the use of adherent components, climatic construction, and faulty desi...

There is a continuous rise in the implementation of information-driven technology in construction, especially for effective control and management of construction resources. However, the enormous opportunities that these technologies provide have not been adequately utilized for construction cost management. Information and communication technologi...

There are severe issues for the deficiency of affordable house for low-income earners in developing countries such as Nigeria. The high cost of conventional materials has been established to be one the major factors that heightened the cost of building in recent times. However the integration of green building materials that are relevant and sustai...

There are significant challenges for local authorities in Malaysia in providing and managing the public facilities for the satisfaction of stakeholders. Therefore, the local authorities need to maintain the facilities to ensure the public to be able to use them effectively and comfortably. However, over the years, the local authorities faced countl...

ABSTRACT Construction industry is information driven industry and the demands for cost effectiveness, process efficiency, and timely delivery of information for management action has led to numerous innovations in the industry. Mobile technology is one of the new trends of industrial innovations which has transformed present day business operation...

Construction Cost control is an integral part of Cost management processes of Construction developments. Construction cost management is a continuous process of cost planning, cost estimation, cost budgeting, management and control of costs in order to complete the scheduled project within the agreed budget. Cost overrun is a major global issue in...

Buildings are complex systems, and therefore truly understanding their performance is difficult. The cost of maintenance is a real problem and a major issue in building projects, and it constitutes a significant part of the total facilities management (FM) cost. This study intends to examine the factors attributed to increased FM cost and the build...

Local authorities in Malaysia are facing enormous challenges in satisfying the needs of the public while providing the facilities for various stakeholders. Previous studies show numerous criticisms and complaints regarding the incapability of the local authorities in managing and maintaining the public facilities (Adnan et al., 2012). Several barri...

Sustainability is becoming an integral part of the life-cycle development of built facilities and is emphasized during the design phase and post-occupancy phase. This article, therefore, investigates the facilities management (FM) sustainable parameters impact on cost performance of building projects. The sustainable parameters were identified thro...

Reverse micelle extraction of erythromycin and amoxicillin were studied by using eco-friendly sophorolipids biosurfactant. Application of biosurfactant can further improve reverse micelle extraction in terms of sustainability and environmental friendliness compared to synthetic surfactants. The mass transfer behavior of the antibiotics during rever...

Automation of Construction Cost control with integrated Mobile Technology

Maintenance management is a crucial element which governs the economic value of the organization itself. The maintenance management portrays the practice of leading and turning the organization through the deployment and handling of available resources such as financial, human, material, knowledgeable and technology. Consequently, the maintenance m...

The building maintenance is a crucial part of the life cycle of the building. The maintenance strategies are planned to maintain the condition of the building for specified functions. The maintenance planning requires a comprehensive assessment in determining the effectiveness of building performance, especially in the maintenance budgets planning...

This paper aimed to determine the economic attributes related to the sustainability of Malaysian construction. The method for data collection is questionnaire survey, which collected from 50 respondents. The results showed that there are many momentous economical attributes identified, which are IBS offers long-term monitoring mechanism by using Li...

A major role of facilities management (FM) is to ensure the maintainability, usability and reliability of the asset being managed. To achieve this management, the last decade shows a growing attention to the concept of the added value of FM. The purpose of this paper is to identify, compare and describe the various FM models and investigate their v...

The construction sector is one of the indicators of national economic growth and has contributed 4% yearly in average to Malaysia GDP and 6% to the national economy between 1995-2015. The excellent of construction growth is mainly from projects implemented under "Public-Private Partnership" (PPP) and privatization. Under 10 th Malaysian Plan, 52 pr...

Facilities management (FM) has a significant growth since last two decades as a new and exciting profession that embraces many essential parts of the built environment. Emphasis on early involvement of FM in the design stage to deliver of an efficient building; which is easy and cost-effective to maintain for the occupants. Present days, maintainab...

The developed MOOCs for Mechanical and Electrical Works Measurement is an innovative and systematic approach using computer-based online system to enhance students' understanding and engagement in the classroom activities. The developed MOOCs are inherited from common quantity surveying course that conducted using PROJECT-BASED LEARNING APPROACH. P...

This paper presents a proposed research methodology undertaken by a researcher to investigate the most accurate and appropriate method to generate a cradle to grave cost planning for Industrialised Building System (IBS) in the Malaysian construction industry. The methodology was intended to bring out accurate results and provide useful sources for...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the need to develop building service standard method of measurement (BSSMM) that would provide a home ground advantage and a framework for managing the cost of building services by quantity surveyors. Design/methodology/approach – A review of previous research on the rules of measurement was carrie...

Project changes are very common and inevitable; hence they constitute high level of risk that contributes to projects failure. However, project change cost is observable to be one of the most sensitive aspects of construction project management and it is also one of the most difficult to control. It has been recognized that higher capability maturi...

Cost is an important measure of project success and clients will expect a reliable forecast at the early stage of construction projects to inform their business decision. This study was undertaken to investigate the current practices in managing cost of mechanical and electrical (M&E) services in buildings. The perceptions of practitioners on the b...

Industrialised Building System (IBS) is world wide responding to sustainable construction. In order to be competitive in this current trend, local construction players have to take this advantages and shift their paradigm from conventional construction to IBS. This paper therefore, aimed to determine the economic attributes related to the sustainab...

Adoption of standard - based pricing method for building services could improve the reliability and consistency of its early budget estimate. This study evaluates the provisions of the standard method of measurement in use in Malaysia in relation to current building services cost management. The study found that the reliability of building services...

This study reviews the importance of green building and identified some popular rating tools available. The importance of green building requirements was also discussed. Significant cost factors in green buildings were described and methods of capturing and controlling the costs of building services by quantity surveyors discussed. The major barrie...

This study describes an empirical investigation revealing the critical obstacles to the adoption of a uniform pricing mechanism for building services from the perspective of industry practitioners . A total of 157 questionnaires conducted on quantity surveyors (N=75), mechanical engineers (N=39) and electrical engineers (N=43) were collected and us...

Cost is generally accepted as an essential ingredient of good design, However, the co-ordination and integration of building services constitute a major problem in the procurement and cost management of buildings coupled with gaps in knowledge by practitioners in the technology of building services. The study proposed a generic framework for integr...

Rapid urbanization induced by population growth will face water shortages due to increase demand of water and it is expected to be more severe in the future. According to the National Water Resources Report 2000-2050 by the Economic Planning Unit, the demand for treated water would grow between 2% and 3.5% annually for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Pu...

Construction skilled shortage workers have become worldwide issue. It also becomes the greatest challenge facing Malaysian construction industry. Moreover, participation by local workforce is not very encouraging and there’s understood that skilled workers produced from vocational training were not meeting industry’s needs. Some of them left constr...

Building services is an important subsector of the Malaysian construction industry, accounting for about 40 percent of the total cost of buildings. Unfortunately, cost management and procurement process of Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) services have not received due attention from the practitioners’, as bills of quantities (BoQ) are still produce...

Here has been a growing awareness of the importance of innovation management in construction over the last few years. However, innovative approach is still under-utilised within construction organisations. More specifically, there is much scope for making construction organisations more competitive through better knowledge management practices. One...

Construction industry plays a prominent role in the Malaysia's economy. However, it is well known that construction projects have many work related accidents. The activities of construction often take place outdoor under conditions not conducive for safety and health. In Malaysia, several efforts had been initiated by government to prevent occupati...

To examine the development of a viable framework for the enhancement of construction site management practices through an integration of knowledge management (KM) processes - underpinned by case study findings from construction organizations that have implemented knowledge management. A multiple case study approach (that incorporates qualitative co...

A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University. There are several challenging engineering and management problems that occur on construction sites. Failure in managing construction site problems results in a high proportion of rework, defects, delays, disputes...

This study focus on the investigation of the opportunities on the application of established artificial intelligence (AI) tools and techniques for the elicitation and representation of knowledge. This has been achieved by initially reviewing the development of knowledge management and artificial intelligence in general and also the context of const...