Perspectives on issues and the application of the innovative procurement approaches for the Industrialised Building System (IBS)

Malaysia is making an aggressive effort of transformation to become a fully developed country. As one of the pillars for transformation, the construction industry has been undergoing a major reform with regard to the traditional method of construction. In recent years, the Industrialised Building System (IBS) has been promoted extensively with the government taking a lead with the practice. Studies showed that IBS has been able to expedite construction process, improve the time taken to accomplish a project, improve building quality, able to control cost and human resources, which in overall, raise occupational health and safety standard of construction. Despite, as most IBS projects were carried out under the traditional procurement method, the full benefits of IBS are somehow obscured. Several issues such as work delay, lack of communication and integration, lack of knowledge and increase in cost, which are synonymous to the traditional procurement method appear to outweigh the benefit of IBS. Hence, this research aims to suggest an alternative to the traditional procurement method with regard to IBS project implementation. The focus of this research has been on the challenges and innovative procurement methods most suited for IBS project. Two objectives were outlined: (1) to identify issues faced by client on current procurement method in IBS projec