No abstract

Employability skills are a set of skills that have been identified as a fundamental element for graduate to secure and maintain jobs. Due to COVID-19, many people have lost their jobs including experienced employees. Thus, it is predicted that future graduates would face difficulties in securing employment. This is because long before the pandemic of COVID-19 occurred, the issue of unemployment among graduates already existed. Now with the pandemic, the situation could get worse. Therefore, objective of this study was to examine quantity surveyor graduate employability skills that are demanded by quantity surveyor consultant firm in the pandemic COVID-19 situation. This research employed a quantitative approach. A set of questionnaires has been distributed to registered quantity surveyor consultant firms in Selangor. The findings revealed that most employers would prefer to have a candidate with soft skills more than hard skills. Graduates are required to have soft skills such as Being capable to adapt with changes, having a positive attitude, and being flexible. However, that does not mean that hard skill or technical skill is not important in quantity surveyor securing a job. It is just that it is less demanded as all graduates are expected to already have the skills. The findings are useful for improving quantity surveyor graduates' understanding of the employability skills perceived as being most important in seeking a job. For further research, it would be good to expand the study to include the contractor's perspective since this study only focuses on consultant firms. This is due to the fact that the role of quantity surveyors in consultant firms and contractors are different.

The Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation is to create a centralised knowledge sharing resource that contains all the necessary design and operational information about the project. BIM is a collaborative approach and integrated project delivery to design and delivery embraced by various construction teams in the construction projects. In the context of the most suitable project delivery to be used, with regards to the use of BIM, the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach is highlighted as the best method which correlates building procurement of the design-to-construction business process through literature review analysis. IPD is developed as project delivery system that integrates people in effective collaborative approach between the key players in the project. IPD is going to be particularly beneficial for BIM because the contracts relation between the contractor, designers, consultants, constructors, sub-contractors and suppliers were binded and expressly determined at earlier stage. This relationship between these two subjects will helped the project team to achieve the project goals in terms of timely schedule, life cycle costs, quality and sustainability in construction project. Therefore, this study investigates on the propensity of the best methodology of project delivery system which can correlate with procurement adoption for projects adapt BIM concept. This is a descriptive study and the method used is based on review of the literature in relation to BIM and IPD. The analysis revealed that propensity of adopting IPD project delivery and the adoption of BIM are based on these factors: improve the communication, closer collaboration; liability and legal relationships are specifically determined, the best quality outcome; and lastly with reductions in design and construction period, it provides a cost effectiveness and a saving in overall construction period.

Payment conflicts are never ending issue in Malaysian construction industry. This issue is a common scenario especially in public work project, which involves a conventional contract. The late payment and non-payment occur due to client inefficient payment administration caused by documentation and human factors. It commonly ended up causing delays in project completion. However, the revolution of Information Technology (IT) within construction industry has shown the development of various management systems, which transformed the way projects are administered. The introduction of Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one of the project management systems, which have been created to centralised knowledge sharing resource as an effective collaborative and integrated approach between inter-disciplines in construction industry. The development of digital technology of Intelligent Contracts brings great potential in BIM management to automate the contractual process and thus create possible solutions towards payment conflicts in the construction project. This paper discusses the process of payment in the conventional contractual procedure, which relate to the causes of delay in payment. It is believed that by integrating BIM and Intelligent Contract’s attributes may help to eliminate the unnecessary procedure, which prolong the payment processes. Therefore, this study is carried out to explore what are the effects of adopting BIM and Intelligent Contracts attributes in conventional payment process. This is a descriptive study and the methodology used is essentially on review of the literature in relation to payment processes in conventional contract, BIM management system and attributes of Intelligent Contract. The analysis revealed that the adoption of BIM and Intelligent Contracts attributes in payment conventional process could improve the efficiency; reduce the time by eliminating third party interference and manual signatory. In addition, the project performance is analysed intelligently as well as minimise the risks of losing information by keeping historical audit trails in automatic system repository.

The construction industry is very important for a developing country, but the rapid development has caused an excessive generalization of solid construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Many solutions have been discovered to prevent C&D waste from destroying the environment—one of them being the implementation of ‘green building’ (GB) that focuses on construction activity that is best able to minimize pollution. Therefore, the strategies employed in waste management are becoming vital, especially in GB, as they must be able to cope with future sustainability developments. Hence, this paper attempts to review the strategies for waste management relative to green building practices. The systematic literature review (SLR) method was employed to achieve the aims and objectives of this research paper. Findings from the SLR indicate that construction waste can be minimized during the planning or design stage, the managing or construction period as well as demolition phase. C&D waste can be controlled by selecting the prefabricated materials, good site management skills that help with on-site coordination, communication, just-in-time (JIT) ordering and receiving of materials, training of workers that can be achieved by reducing C&D waste. Furthermore, the reusing and recycling of C&D waste during the construction period can be the strategies in managing waste. Besides that, in the aspect of GB practice, waste management can be controlled by applying sustainable operation, resources management, and environmental health in every decision-making throughout the development lifecycle.