Developing a Framework to Facilitate “Joint Effort†Initiatives in Malaysian Industrialized Building System (IBS) Projects

Abstract

Poor ability to meet growing housing demands are a major problem for Malaysia. Despite the initiatives to move towards the uptake of Industrialized Building System (IBS), it has been hampered by fragmentation issues, a typical picture of traditional mentalities. “Joint Effortâ€, initiatives have the potential to rescue the current predicament however, the industry hesitance has been a major hindering factor. This paper reports the progress to date of on-going research aimed at developing a validated framework to facilitate “Joint Effort†uptake in Malaysian IBS projects. “Joint Effortâ€, being among the core component of Supply Chain Management (SCM), is a collaborative endeavor that has the potential to overcome fragmentations. It leans towards the creation of effective teamwork which benefits all parties at both short and long term. Encouraged by a few success cases, there is cautious optimism that it may as well benefit the Malaysian dilemma. This paper considers fragmentation as a major hindrance on IBS uptake, establishes the need to embrace “Joint Effort†initiatives and then elucidates the needs and strategies towards coming out with the final research framework. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches will be used and the final outcome will be a framework that proposes beneficial tools to curb the critical barriers to “Joint Effort†uptakes. It is expected that the framework would aid in improving IBS practices thus better able to meet the housing demands.