This is the perception of construction industry. Thus the need to regularized workplace health& safety is impeccable. However, rules and regulations shall be enacted with consideration of its implementation& ramifications.
Likewise with quality, Malaysia building's quality is not the worst but still far from developed country's standard.
In order to gauge the quality of work, CIDB had make reference to CONQUAS21 (construction quality assessment system) and adjusted some of its scoring before re-brand it as QLASSIC.
Malaysia is not the only country who copied the Singapore CONQUAS, country such as Australia, UK, Hong Kong, China, South Africa& India have done the same. Why re-invent the wheel if it's proven effective?
What is CONQUAS21? Click here! or Refer to below for the guidebook.
I think CIDB(Construction Industry Development Board, Malaysia) did the right thing, by copied the proven success story into Malaysia, though it's not as successful in the real world.
Why? QLASSIC is still only a tools to measure quality of construction works though it allow user to know where their quality level stand but it need to be demand driven from the developer side, to motivate contractor finding ways to get their project certified, through proper channel. Only till then, it is truly meaningful.
Without a real demand-driven market, It's simply a tools lying in the toolbox.
I've written to CIDB concerning others factors attribute to poor quality. Aside from the demand, the industry need to know how to achieve it. Thus, I suggested CIDB to come out with guidelines or classes/workshop.
If cost or technical expertise to ironing out the guidebook is a problem then CIDB might as well copy again from BCA (Building& Construction Authority of Singapore).
For CONQUAS21 guidebook for each trades (click here!).
Now we have the tools and the knowledge, the challenge now is to make construction industry
- adopt the tools,
- learn the knowledge (Materials, design, workmanship, project management),
- Achieve minimum score& go beyond!
while on the authority side is to ensure score given fair and square.
Since QLASSIC is expected to be compulsory, the assessor for such tools is also expected to increase capacity from 3% to 100%.
Become compulsory without good governance and integrity lead to corruption. The assessor and accreditation board must have the stamina to withstand the influence of bribery.
Good pay,licensing, and difficult in obtaining the qualification as assessor will increase the risk to accept corruption, thus shy them away.
Become compulsory without good governance and integrity lead to corruption. The assessor and accreditation board must have the stamina to withstand the influence of bribery.
Good pay,licensing, and difficult in obtaining the qualification as assessor will increase the risk to accept corruption, thus shy them away.
If successful,the quality level of Malaysia building industry will be highly appraised.
To make it a compulsory item, CIDB need to mandate with power to penalized the none-compliance(& penalized enough to have economical scale)which require it to be gazette as law, otherwise there's little meaning to bark& beg developer to do so.
Alternatively, a more liberal approach to increase take up rate or rather use it as tool to achieve certain level of quality is;
- to increase the demand from end-consumer side.
- peg it to foreign labor permit assessment criteria.
- to increase credit hours of compulsory course in QLASSIC for building industry personnel.
Basically goes back to carrot&stick economy.
By judging from the relatively low awareness about quality building and state of economy,the demand from the end-user side is negligible. More so, if it is for investor who would sell off the property upon completion to harvest maximum return(when QLASSIC does not affect property prices).
As for some high-end purchaser or tenant, they would prefer CONQUAS over QLASSIC which have better fame in integrity though not necessary point-to-point equivalent as QLASSIC is more stringent and able to conduct full assessment whereas CONQUAS only conduct architectural part of the assessment.
So, perception play an important role too.
In order to have demand from the property market, QLASSIC need to create value, substantial enough to offset its cost while convince developer and investor that property with QLASSIC can be their competitive advantage for profit making.
Another indirect approach is to regulate from the foreign labor number intake. This allow achieving both quality and productivity in the construction industry but would add cost to initial capital (for machinery& equipment) which would then either transfer the cost to investor or at contractor expense(less profit margin); the former would result higher property price.
CIDB can benchmark the productivity of each trade or based on project's contract sum with GFA as factor to set number of foreign labor permit allowable. This need to work with others ministry.
By limiting the number of foreign labor, the construction market either force to take local (most costly& lazy) or mechanized their operation with greater IBS score. Again, CIDB need to provide avenue for training.
Lesser foreign labor means lesser currency outflow, lesser social problem& epidemic of diseases, lower safety risk (less labor).
In long run,the contractor will get back the investment but as many/any business, cash is king, especially in construction industry which is more volatile than any other industry. Machinery& equipment invested need to be reuse many times to get back capital invested. Small company might not even have the capital for such games.
Thus, CIDB need to ensure machinery rental company exist(economically) to fill the gap.
There's also the needs for database gathering for constant monitoring and controlling. Singapore have that kinda thing to make Project Manager like me add more pile workload on desk.
CIDB might even get good performer to share their experience or detect fishy business(too good to be true).
All the above need to have a knowledge market manpower. CIDB could make more training with credit hours for contractor& designer.
Power come with responsibility!
By judging from the relatively low awareness about quality building and state of economy,the demand from the end-user side is negligible. More so, if it is for investor who would sell off the property upon completion to harvest maximum return(when QLASSIC does not affect property prices).
As for some high-end purchaser or tenant, they would prefer CONQUAS over QLASSIC which have better fame in integrity though not necessary point-to-point equivalent as QLASSIC is more stringent and able to conduct full assessment whereas CONQUAS only conduct architectural part of the assessment.
So, perception play an important role too.
In order to have demand from the property market, QLASSIC need to create value, substantial enough to offset its cost while convince developer and investor that property with QLASSIC can be their competitive advantage for profit making.
Another indirect approach is to regulate from the foreign labor number intake. This allow achieving both quality and productivity in the construction industry but would add cost to initial capital (for machinery& equipment) which would then either transfer the cost to investor or at contractor expense(less profit margin); the former would result higher property price.
CIDB can benchmark the productivity of each trade or based on project's contract sum with GFA as factor to set number of foreign labor permit allowable. This need to work with others ministry.
By limiting the number of foreign labor, the construction market either force to take local (most costly& lazy) or mechanized their operation with greater IBS score. Again, CIDB need to provide avenue for training.
Lesser foreign labor means lesser currency outflow, lesser social problem& epidemic of diseases, lower safety risk (less labor).
In long run,the contractor will get back the investment but as many/any business, cash is king, especially in construction industry which is more volatile than any other industry. Machinery& equipment invested need to be reuse many times to get back capital invested. Small company might not even have the capital for such games.
Thus, CIDB need to ensure machinery rental company exist(economically) to fill the gap.
There's also the needs for database gathering for constant monitoring and controlling. Singapore have that kinda thing to make Project Manager like me add more pile workload on desk.
CIDB might even get good performer to share their experience or detect fishy business(too good to be true).
All the above need to have a knowledge market manpower. CIDB could make more training with credit hours for contractor& designer.
Power come with responsibility!
CONQUAS GUIDEBOOK
QLASSIC GUIDEBOOK(2007)
QLASSICC GUIDEBOOK (2014)