A qualitative study of blockwork plants in Malaysia

Kusumawardani, Rini

A qualitative study of blockwork plants in Malaysia

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Title

A qualitative study of blockwork plants in Malaysia

Type

Article

Main Author

Kusumawardani, Rini

Additional Authors

Zuhri, Fuad Jauhar
Mohamed Nor Azhari Azman

Subject

L Education (General)

ISSN

1985-3807

Language Code

eng

Bibliographic Details

Place of Production

N/A

Year of publication

2017

Abstract

The Malaysian Government has been continuously encouraging the engineers, the practitioners, and the construction industry to use the Industrialised Building System (IBS), which is considered to be an important part of modern method approach of construction. According to Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), there are five main parts of IBS, namely precast component systems, steel framing systems, formworks systems, prefabricated timber framing systems, and blockwork systems, which have started to replace the traditional construction method. The objective of this study is to identifies the blockwork manufacturing process and also to identifies the decisive factor to setting up blockwork manufacturing plant. The methodology used in this study is relied on the qualitative approach. Data collection process was done by conducting observation to the location of the blockwork manufacturer and conducting interview with duration 45 minutes to 1 hour. The number of interviewee that involved in this interview process is three interviewees from three different blockwork plant. The data was analysed and processed into a textual statement that could be used as scientific data. The study finds that to manufacture a blockwork, the material that will be use must been chosen and treated wisely so it will not reduce a quality of blockwork. And also it need a good machinery because the production is heavily relied on the machinery. Machine maintenance must be done so that the machine will not easily broken and affecting the quality of blockwork. A quality control of blockwork in two of three companies that have been observed is relied on the laboratory tests and audited by Malaysian Government through SIRIM (Scientific and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia). From this quality control, it found that the compressive strength is the main factor to determine whether the block is feasible to use or not. Number of workers, machinery and wide of plant area are contributes to production capacity. For example, in Company A with number of workers range to 4 to 7 people, two types of machine with one machine of each type, and wide of plant area of ±810 m2 produce 3.125 m3 blockwork per day. Compare to Company B with number of workers range to 8 to 12 people, one type of machine with two number of machine, and wide of plant area of ±8,093 m2 could produce 11.25 m3 blockwork per day. The study also finds problems in blockwork manufacturing process. The main problem that manufacturers may have to face is quality of the material and machinery. Quality of the material could affect the quality of the blockwork, while machinery problem could affect the capacity production and the line of production, meaning that if this problem is not handled by manufacturers, the plant could be shut down as there is no machine that could work.

References

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