The Advantages and Barriers of Automation in Malaysia Construction Industry

Abstract

Malaysian construction industry is still familiar with the conventional system and the technology
that suits them well and therefore they are unwilling to switch to a modern construction system
like Industrialised Building System (IBS). Conventional system always associates with low quality
and productivity, high risk on worker’s safety, and excessive reliance on labors if the project
adopting conventional system. Other than that, on site work normally involves extreme activities
on the site that cause constant nuisances to local communities such as messy environment, traffic
chaos, noise, and air pollution. The aim of this research is to encourage the implementation of
automation in Malaysia construction industry. The objectives of this paper are; to identify the
benefits of automation in construction industry, secondly, to identify the barriers on the
implementation of automation works in construction industry and finally to recommend the
implementation of automation which may improve the quality of workmanship. Questionnaire
survey were conducted to collect the viewpoints among developers, contractors and manufacturers
of IBS to ensure the richness of the data collected. Frequency analysis and Mean Score Indices
were used to analyse the results. Results revealed that majority of the respondents agreed on the
most critical barrier to the implementation of automation in Malaysian construction industry and
they were not ready to move forward.