Improving communication in managing industrialised building system (IBS) projects:Virtual environment

• Main Authors: Ahmad Pozin, Mohd Affendi, Mohd Nawi, Mohd Nasrun, Azman, Mohamed Nor Azhari, Lee, Angela
• Format: Article
• Published: Construction Research Institute of Malaysia (CREAM) 2017
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/23131/; http://www.cream.my/main/index.php/publication/download-mcrj#
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Traditional approaches are still dominant in virtually all construction projects in Malaysia. This was highlighted as the main barrier for further developing the Industrialized Building System (IBS) construction process. Indeed, traditional approaches implemented in IBS have been recognised by several studies as failing to support effective work teams when team processes are disconnected from each other (fragmented), thus failing to produce an effective communication process.Additionally, IBS construction involves large numbers of teams with different expertise and from different organisations, all of which are handled by different numbers of management processes, for instance in planning, manufacturing, transportation, positioning and assembling the structures that involve minimal additional site work.With the increasing demand in building bigger and better buildings and structures, construction projects are becoming more complex to manage by project managers, as they have to manage every single phase by coordinating and monitoring the entire project while at the same time, consider different values and interests from every project team members. Hence, high intensity levels of communication processes involving project team members are importance in order to produce high quality information in decision-making process and conveying instructions to all team members. Regarding the issues of communication practices inside construction projects, this paper explores how communication is applied by the project team management in managing different construction stages inside an IBS construction project with several of stakeholders from diverse locations, and different cultural and organisational backgrounds.Even though a few studies had highlighted communication barriers in the construction field, only a few investigated virtual team practices in the IBS construction industry, especially in Malaysian construction. In this context, preliminary interviews were conducted on several project managers with vast experience in managing IBS construction projects. The content analysis method was used as the technique to ensure the gathered data were comprehensively and accurately analysed.The results showed that most project teams communicated virtually within and among teams for the duration of the project implementation, which the phenomenon is resulting from modern organisational form. There are five categories associated with virtual team work environment, namely distributed area, open discussion, team attitude, communication technology, and reliability of task, all of which are exceptionally pertinent in virtual team, compared to traditional team, work interaction practices.