Investigating the impact of inflation on labour wages in Construction Industry of Malaysia

Buildability deals with the optimal integration of construction expertise at various project stages to achieve the overall project goals. Incorporation of buildability improves the construction project performance in terms of its cost, quality, productivity, safety, and results early completion. Thus, having a sound understanding of buildability concept is paramount for finding solutions for transforming current practices towards successful project deliveries. The numerous past studies reviewing the concept of buildability in the past have highlighted the interchangeability of the terms “constructability” and “buildability”. However, in some studies, these two terms contradict rather than considered similar. Moreover, the application of the concept of buildability is widely discussed during the design phase while some studies recommend it to be applied in the construction phase. Thus, there is no clear consensus on the clarity of the key constructs of these terms or when to apply buildability. This paper aims to systematically review the application of the concepts “buildability” and “constructability” in the construction sector and compare the definitions to understand the key constructs and best phase of the construction project for its applicability. A structured literature review covering indexed publications from 2011-2021 was carried out to identify the existing literature. Following a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) technique, a total of 38 out of 162 research contributions have been considered for an in-depth analysis. The choice of interpretations, comments, statements, perspectives, and definitions used in 38 studies were examined. The study identified the key constructs of two terms and recommends applying buildability throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Comparison between the terms constructability and buildability : a systematic literature review

In the development of sustainable and resilient infrastructures to adapt to the rapidly changing natural and social environment, the complexity of the dependencies and interdependencies within critical infrastructure systems need to be fully understood, as they affect various components of risk and lead to cascading failures. Water and road infrastructures are highly co-located but often managed and maintained separately. One important aspect of their interdependence is the impact of vehicle loading on a road on underlying water pipes. The existing studies lack a comprehensive evaluation of this subject and do not consider possible critical failure scenarios. This study constructed finite element models to analyze the responses of buried water pipes to vehicle loads under an array of scenarios, including various loads, pipe materials, pipe dimensions, and possible extreme conditions, such as corrosion in pipes and a sinkhole under the pipe. The results showed negligible impact of heavy trucks on buried water pipes. The pipe deflection under a maximum allowable truck load in the worst condition was still within the allowable range specified in standards such as those from the American Water Works Association. This implies that the impact of heavy vehicles on water pipes may not need to be considered in the context of the interdependency between water and road infrastructures, which leads to a more unidirectional dependency between these two infrastructures.

Truck Impact on Buried Water Pipes in Interdependent Water and Road Infrastructures

1990 is a special year for celebration of New Zealand history; it is the 150th anniversary of the signing the Treaty of Waitangi by Maori chiefs and representatives of the British Crown. Throughout the country many special projects and events have been organised to celebrate the development of NZ as a nation. The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, (IPENZ), has taken the opportunity to develop its own 1990 project which commemorates the contribution engineers and engineering have made during this period. Bronze plaques have been fixed to 68 of NZ's most notable engineering works, and a large interpretive panel displayed near each. A set of three colour brochures has been published and ceremonies held to unveil each plaque. Key players in the project were a voluntary project convenor and selection panel, and a paid project manager. In retrospect the 1990 project has been most successful, IPENZ branches have become involved at local level, and there have been good public relations returns. This paper outlines and analyses the IPENZ 1990 project as a guide for future similar projects.

Engineering Works to 1990: The 1990 Plaquing Project of the Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand

Whether a private bidder can win a concession depends largely on advanced financial engineering techniques, numerous methods were developed. Meeting large infrastructure needs including its proper maintenance and operation is and will remain a major challenge for the all-around the in the coming years requiring targeted innovative financing mechanisms. Even though it is recognized that there are three types of financial instruments, equity, mezzanine finance and debt in funding an infrastructure project, the status quo is that previous capital optimization methods did not consider mezzanine finance or simply categorized it into debt-like or equity-like instruments. The global infrastructure sector is witnessing a steady growth of private equity investment in mezzanine instruments. The frequent usage of the contingent claim embedded in mezzanine financing makes the traditional model for capital structure optimization invalid. This study presents a more advanced method to optimize capital structure in infrastructure financing. This easily implemented method is based on a two-stage procedure: I) identification of optimal stopping time for convertible securities, and II) capital structure optimization by a conventional model. The quantitative optimization model can be easily generalized. The global infrastructure sector is witnessing the continued growth of a private equity fund of mezzanine tools. Repeated use of potential claims embedded in mezzanine financing has invalidated the traditional model for optimizing capital structure.

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Transportation Infrastructure Project Financing; Highways Capital Structure Design Techniques

Success in infrastructure projects requires success in all phases of the project, including design, construction, and operation. One of the necessary actions for developing countries to construct their economic infrastructures, is implementing infrastructure plans. This industry should focus more on the construction process and utilizing creative tools and new concepts for construction development. The reason of it is because of delivering the project with certain quality, in time and with the given budget. Contractors should have new strategies for construction to optimize project completion, and constructability. Accordingly, constructability improvements have become the concern of construction industry practitioners. Considering constructability issues in the early stages of the project enhances identifying design limitations that prevent capabilities of contractors to take part in planning and improving project performance. The purpose of this study is identifying the prerequisites of constructability to resolve the current problems of projects, including inappropriate plans without implementability, poor decision making in design, and lack of sufficient implementation experience in the design engineering team. This study provides a list of prerequisites for constructability implementation in infrastructure projects. Accordingly, it identifies the prerequisites, using Systematic Literature Review (SLR) technique. The NVivo software is used to facilitate the qualitative analyses.

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Rozita Samimpey

Papers

A Systematic Review of Prerequisites for Constructability Implementation in Infrastructure Projects