PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the main barriers of ISO 9000 implementation in local government (LG) organizations. In addition to this, this study also determines whether these barriers are different between the various types of LG organizations or otherwise.Design/methodology/approachBased on previous studies and research, related and relevant information had been gathered in order to develop the questionnaire form used in this research to ensure adequacy and accuracy of the survey tool content. The main content of the questionnaire focuses on statements that relate to the barriers which normally occur in implementing ISO 9000. The data that was garnered from this survey was then analysed using quantitative methods in line with answering the related research questions.FindingsDescriptive statistical analysis shows that, in total, there are five main barriers and two additional barriers that have been faced by LG organizations in implementing ISO 9000. Five of these barriers are the common barriers as frequently discussed in previous studies, while the remaining two main barriers are new findings that were discovered through this study. The non‐parametric analysis results also indicate that from the seven discovered barriers, only four have differences based on the types of LG organizations.Research limitations/implicationsThe top management of LG organizations must realize that the implementation of ISO 9000 in their organizations has been certainly hindered by several barriers. Therefore, certain specific measures must be undertaken to ensure that these obstacles may be overcome and subsequently enable a LG organization to meet the target of acquiring accreditation within a shorter period of time. This will in turn facilitate more LG organizations to achieve this certification in line with the aim of the government.Originality/valueThis paper has discovered the specific main barriers that obstruct ISO implementation in Malaysian LG organizations. The findings of this study indicate that these main barriers constitute obstacles that have been previously discussed as well as new hindrances which have yet to be explored in detail. This study could also be used to further expand research regarding the ISO 9000 subject matter, specifically within the context of the public sector which is relatively scarcely researched especially in Malaysia.

Purpose Effective building maintenance management is vital for reducing the impact of building defects and costly building maintenance work. Such practice significantly contributes to the public sector in terms of cost reduction, improved effectiveness and efficiency in maintenance works, increasing safety and well-being of the occupants, expanding the life of building stocks and expanding the value of investment for the government building assets. The maintenance practice in Malaysia is still emerging in comparison to many developed nations. The purpose of this study is to determine the current scenario of the building maintenance approach at the design stage in public buildings in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach An extensive questionnaire survey was held, involving 312 key players (38 per cent out of 820 predetermined participants) in Malaysia. Findings The analysis showed that building maintenance in public building in Malaysia still uses the reactive approach. Despite the Malaysian Government’s adoption of a proactive maintenance approach, unfortunately, there are some misunderstandings among the key players regarding the approach. The research results demonstrate that the key players had a lack of understanding on the concept of the proactive maintenance management approach and that they were either ignorant or had insufficient awareness of proactive maintenance approach. Originality/value The contribution of this study is useful for the government to adopt a more proactive building maintenance policy at the design stage, to give awareness on proactive building maintenance to the key players in their construction project and as a guide to the key players to adopt a maintenance plan at the design stage of work.

The paper purposely to confirm the keys entity from the literature reviews targeting expertise as advisors for the organisation management to establish an existence required for mitigates in the decision-making process. Stratified random sampling with questionnaires as a research instrument and 129 expertise in heritage fields as a factor analysis meticulously set up. Preliminaries finding indicates with statistic confirmation that there are ten main entities namely social, economic, function, physical, infrastructure, technology, law and regulation, politic, environment and finance. The confirmatory result towards entity will contribute to the preliminaries stage procedure in developing an adaptive reuse model to organization management.

The Malaysian government has endorsed the use of an industrialized building system (IBS) in domestic projects. These have shifted the focus of the nation's construction industry towards mass production and modular products. A proper study on site selection criteria for new IBS precast manufacturing sites has now become essential. The preliminary study in this research determines the IBS precast manufacturing site selection criteria from literature reviews. Questionnaires pertaining to IBS acceptance and preference criteria were send to manufacturers, policymakers, academicians and contractors. The outcome analyses the respondents' view towards 15 site selection criteria. The result from the ANOVA statistical test indicates that most respondents agreed with the selected criteria except political and regulation criteria, urban requirement criteria, and personal criteria. However, there is a significant difference within the opinions of the contractors and manufacturers sector. Likewise, the mean ranking analysis of criteria shows significant difference in their preferences. The ideal rank of criteria preferred by the correspondents are costs, transportation and optimum distance, land sites, resources and utilization, infrastructures, economy markets, labour, inter-industry linkage, environmental risk, competition, personal, population, capacity, political and regulatory, and urban criteria. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Azman, M. N. A.; Ahamad, M. S. S.; Majid, T. A.; Yahaya, A. S.; Hanafi, M. H. 2013. Statistical evaluation of pre-selection criteria for industrialized building system (IBS), Journal of Civil Engineering and Management 19(Supplement 1): S131-S140. http://dx.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been emerged to streamline the construction process by addressing interdisciplinary inefficiencies that have been rooted in the industry over the decades. However,Malaysiaconstruction industry is having barriers and difficulties in BIM adoption as there is no clear guidance and best practices in BIM implementation that can be learnt by them. The purpose of this research is to increase the awareness of BIM implementation towards enhancing the efficiency and productivity of architecture firms. BIM implementation requirements which cover management, process, people and technology were investigated through a total of 285 structured questionnaire surveys that distributed to professional or/and graduate architects at management and operational level. The overall severity of BIM implementation requirements were then established and ranked in conjunction with their perceived levels of importance and frequency of occurrence. Results indicate that the current low BIM status denominated among architectural practices in Malaysian construction industry. Predominantly attributed to the interoperability of BIM, selection of BIM tools, employment of pilot project, risks management and development of guidelines and standards that categorised under the management and process.