value management study to the malaysian construction industry

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VALUE MANAGEMENT STUDY TO THE MALAYSIAN

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Aini Jaapar1

1Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia, Shah Alam,

40450 Selangor, Malaysia

The significant contributions of this research are the discovery of current VM practices in

Malaysia and the proposed practical VM Guidelines for the Malaysian construction industry.

These are as a result of the mixed methodological approach of triangulated data collection

and concatenated exploratory research employed. The development process of the proposed

VM Guidelines included results from the data which emerged as a result of the mixed

methodology design method of the quantitative results and the qualitative findings.

Documents, literature reviews, surveys, interviews and observations were uniquely

juxtaposed in a holistic blend to obtain the data desired in order to map out the landscape of

VM field in the Malaysian construction industry.

Keywords: concatenated exploratory research, Malaysian construction industry, mixed

methodology design, value management.

INTRODUCTION

VM in the Malaysian construction industry is the main thrust and focus of this study.

VM, is defined by this study as a multi-disciplinary, team orientated, structured,

analytical process and systematic analysis of function which seeks best value via the

design and construction process to meet the clients perceived needs.

This article fundamentally signpost the component parts of the research on VM

application in the Malaysian construction industry by using concatenated exploratoryresearch using mixed methodology design. The significant contributions of this

research were the discovery of current VM practices in Malaysia and the proposed

practical VM Guidelines for the Malaysian construction industry. This is as a result

of the mixed methodological approach of triangulated data collection and

concatenated exploratory research employed.

Internationally, VM has been recognised as an emerging paradigm that focuses on

continuously increasing the value provided to the client and is widely accepted as an

important tool in recent management of construction projects (Ellis, Wood et al.

2005). The construction industry is an important field for VM at the international

level (Kelly, Male et al. 2004). VM is also critical to the success of projects as it

provides a basis for improving value for money in construction (Ashworth & Hogg2000). It also focuses on value rather than cost and seeks to achieve an optimal

balance between time, cost and quality (Kelly, Male et al. 2004) as it provides a

method of integration in the building process that no other management structure in

construction can provide (Kelly & Male 1991). Hence, the functional requirements

and seeks overall optimisation were explored accordingly (Shen 1995). This was

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The Research DesignResearch design is the entire process of connecting the empirical data to the

conclusions of the research; starting from the conceptualised of the problem until the

data collection, analysis and the reporting process (Yin 1994; Creswell 1998). The

function of Figure 2 was to ensure that the evidence obtained by the research enabled

the researcher to answer the initial question of how and what do we learn fromprojects that have implemented the concept of VM?; as unambiguously as possible

(de Vaus 2001).


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Figure 1 Research Design

Phase 1 Literature Review:

VM, Construction Industry, Client, Value, Decision Making

Collect VM

documents

Theoretical Framework

Phase 2

SURVEY 1General Clients:

Level ofSatisfaction &

General Awarenessof VM

Phase 3

VM WORKSHOPSObservations

Synthesis

Phase 8 Validation for the proposed VM Guidelines by construction industry clients & consultants

Phase 7 Propose the Malaysian VM Guidelines

The Prototype Guidelines of VM Application for the Malaysian Construction Industry

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Consultants

Experience

ClientsEx erience

Phase 4

SURVEY 2Experienced Clients &

ProfessionalConsultants: VM

Implementation in

Construction Projects

Adjustments

Develop Research Objectives

Phase 6 Semi-Structured Open Response Interviews

Phase 5 VM Documents


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The concatenated exploratory approach (Stebbins 2001) has been employed due to

the researchers cumulative expertise (Stebbins 2001 and Mason 2002) on past

research experience and knowledge towards VM which was able to be capitalised by

the research. This element was important as not much was known about the situation

of VM in the Malaysian construction industry. The strength of the concatenated

exploration adopted was that it provided a venue of opportunity for the researcher to

push the development of VM toward increased methodological and theoretical rigour(Stebbins 2001) which was acquired through quantitative and qualitative approaches

by using mixed methodology design to the maximum extent allowed.

The exploratory approach also created a descriptive platform for the researcher to

conduct extensive preliminary works to further describe the VM situation in the

Malaysian construction industry. The descriptive approach focused on the events that

are in process or have already taken place. It provided the research with greater

familiarity and understanding platform towards the practice of VM in the Malaysian

context before the research was able to design a rigorous and comprehensive

methodology to produce the VM Guidelines.

It also provides the research with a profile or descriptions on relevant aspects of VMfrom the perspective of the clients and their consultants. The results led to further

investigation whether the application and practiced VM was consistent with the

international practices and what could be learned from projects in Malaysia that had

applied VM. This information was vital before even considering the VM

implementation to the overall Malaysian construction industry, should the clients and

their advisors consider the VM application for their future projects.

By employing the exploratory approach towards the research, it was discovered that

this research would have to adopt both types of qualitative and quantitative techniques

of data collection to ensure that the methodology is robust and able to meet the

research objectives. Both types of qualitative and quantitative techniques were

triangulated whereby data were collected through the processes of two sets ofquestionnaires, observations, VM reports and interviews. The research used

simultaneous methodological triangulation which is inductive and based on the

qualitative foundation.

The mixed-methodology design (Creswell 1994) was adopted throughout the research

as it represented the highest degree of mixing paradigms for both qualitative and

quantitative aspects. Initially, the simple intention to triangulate the findings ended up

in the convergence of the results of the research leading to enhancement of study

breadth and scope. Apart from mixing the method, it also linked paradigms to method

as well as to combine the designs in all phases of study (Creswell 1994). Black (1999)

stated that most studies employ more than one approach as the intention was to reflect

on what are likely to be the most suitable tools to employ in resolving the research

question at hand. The nature of this research corresponds more with having both of the

approaches, qualitative and quantitative, to make the research more conclusive as they

complemented each other by ensuring the emergent relationship between the concepts

of the research was confirmed by the quantitative approach adopted, and vice-versa.

Balnaves & Caputi (2001) and Nachmias & Nachmias (1992) highlighted that by

combining the quantitative and qualitative methods, any phenomenon could be


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measured by objective observations as well as reports, together with interviews

(Nachmias & Nachmias 1992) which could be combined with statistical information.

They also emphasised that data gathering should be combined with information about

the history of the subject under study and data from unobtrusive studies, such as

observation should be combined with questionnaire and other self-reported data

thereby,contributing to the descriptive research elements towards this research.

It was concluded by Creswell (1994 p.185) in line with Greene et. al. (1989) that the

other advantages of an integrated or mixed methods approach resulted in triangulated

or converged findings, results would be more elaborated as well it would be able to

inform each sector. Thus, the paradoxes or contradictions would be better discovered

and able to ensure that the breadth of the inquiry was extended. The input from the

quantitative and qualitative data was necessary as it provided the VM characteristics

in the Malaysian construction project applications as well as it provided the details

pertaining to VM applications in action.

Figure 2: Triangulation Process of the Research

On matters pertaining to the extent of interference with the research, according to

Sekaran (2003 p. 127), the extent of interference by the researcher with the normal

flow of work at the workplace has direct bearing on whether the study undertaken is a

causal or correlational study. With that in mind, the research imposed minimum

interference during the data gathering process as the survey questionnaires,

Quantitative Qualitative

Validation(and Application)

Preliminary Survey 1

Semi-structured Interviews

Survey 2

Literature Review

Observations of VM Workshops

ProposedMalaysian

VM Guidelines

Analysis of VM Reports

Piloting

The VM

Guidelines


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observations and interviews were used to collect the relevant data pertaining to the

level of VM applications and practices.

Since it is a correlational study, all the related processes of VM were conducted

without interference and in their natural environment where the works preceded

normally thus the research setting were considered as noncontrived settings. The

unit of analysis of this research were the individual clients and consultants whoseconstruction projects with VM applications were the subject of these investigations.

BRIEF OUTLINE OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

How VM is applied in the Malaysian construction industry and to what extend did its

applications succeeded in implementing the value methodology? It was deduced that

comprehensive coverage from the literature review in relation to VM, projects

outcomes, the views from the clients and the consultants were required. To achieve

the stated objectives, a preliminary survey was the answer (Winch 1990) to start with,

together with a robust methodology which included the detailed questionnaire, semi-

structured interviews, observations and collected VM documents by using the researchdesign stated earlier.

Since the clients were the reasons of entry of the construction industry, it was

important during the initial stage of the research to gauge what were the current levels

of local clients satisfaction and their level of knowledge towards VM. From the

preliminary questionnaire survey, related level of satisfaction was gauged and at the

same time, their knowledge of VM was determined. As a result, projects in Malaysia

with the application of VM were identified and added to the researchers list of VM

documents previously collected. At the same time, the observations of live VM

application were carried out to give an insight into how VM was practiced to ensure

first hand experience and for greater understanding. The main objective of the

observation was to gather primary data on its application for later analyses.

The second postal questionnaire was sent to the expert clients and their professional

representatives who were the registered professional consultants of the Malaysian

construction industry. The outcome of the detailed survey resulted in the discovery of

a few other VM practitioners, as well as the number of respondents who had gone

through the VM process was identified.

The subsequent process was a set of structured open response interviews to determine

and confirm the characteristics of the current VM practices in the Malaysian

construction industry. They were carried out with 38 randomly selected respondents

of representatives of the clients and their representatives (10 clients, 6 architects, 6

engineers, 6 quantity surveyors, 6 project managers and 4 VM facilitators) who hadstated that they had experienced the VM applications selected from each process of

questionnaire surveys and observations conducted earlier.

In order to add further knowledge on how VM is practised in Malaysia, the VM

reports of projects were collected and analysed to ensure further details which could

contribute to the proposed VM framework and to validate the respondents stated

experiences.


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Apart from the process stated above, and the literature reviews conducted, VM

documents and information were collected to give the insights towards its application

in the Malaysian construction industry. Although the descriptions of some cases in

the publications were not so comprehensive, the information aggregated by the

documents was deemed to be adequate to reflect the overall picture of the local VM

practice.

The outcomes of the research processes contributed to the process for the construction

of a VM framework of reference for guiding the undertaking of the VM process in the

future.

As to ensure the integrity and practicality of the proposed framework a validation

process was carried out. This procedure was necessary to ensure that the proposed

framework was feasible, practical, robust and capable of being applied in the

Malaysian construction industry. The process included a piloting process were

conducted by a panel of professional construction industry players consisted of the

clients and consultants to ensure its integrity, feasible, robust and practical to be

applied to the Malaysian construction industry during the final phase of the research.

The focus is to ensure that the Prototype Guidelines of Value ManagementApplication for the Malaysian Construction Industry(VM Guidelines) is developed

based on empirical findings and interpretations as well as it reflects the synthesis of

each of the phases.

Figure 3 The Value Management Guidelines for the Malaysian Construction

Industry


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Figure 4 The Value Management Guidelines: The Road Map

Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the results of the surveys, interviews, case

studies observations and workshop discussions established the key themes of the

framework. These were the processes which formed the main structured and content

of the research.

CONCLUSION

As the knowledge and application of VM in Malaysia is not as sophisticated as in

many other countries, an exploratory research design has been deemed appropriate in

answering the research questions posed. Furthermore, a mixed methodological design

that has utilised both quantitative and qualitative approaches has enhanced data

collection and analysis.

The method of research triangulation adopted in this study has adequately addressed

issues related to the methodological rigour of research of this nature and has also

addressed issues related to validity and reliability. Documents, literature reviews,

surveys, interviews and observations were uniquely juxtaposed in a holistic blend toobtain the data desired in order to map out the landscape of VM field in the Malaysian

construction industry.

This study has shown that the Malaysian construction industry needs a better approach

in project delivery. The data obtained and analysed show that the industry should

adopt VM methodology in order to enhance efficiency and to deliver maximum value

to its clients. It has also demonstrated the need for the construction industry to be

more proactive in its stance and for better and innovative solutions to be integrated


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into the construction processes. The findings indicated that VM is still in an early

stage of development in Malaysia. VM applications were found to occur and adhered

to job plan methodology as discovered by Survey 1; confirmed by the observations;

detailed by the Survey 2 respondents; elaborated and explained by the interviewees

and validated by the VM documents. Its applications also resulted in cost savings,

higher client satisfaction and better decision making process.

The prototype VM Guidelines that have been developed can improve the future

implementation of VM applications in the construction industry in Malaysia. This

will not only help to improve the quality of service provided by the industry, but will

also be a step towards engendering value-added services of a much higher standard.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

The study has contributed towards better knowledge and understanding of the VM

implementation in the Malaysian construction industry towards the enhancement of

value for the clients and the consultants in the industry by making new interpretations

leading to new evidence to the body of knowledge.

The major contribution of this research is, to explore the concept of VM and its

application in the Malaysian construction industry. In addition, it also contributes to

the clients operations from a practical stand point in achieving better value for money

for their procured construction projects. A system of VM application is specifically

to be used as a reference to any client wanting to develop and implement the VM

philosophy within their organisation.

The most significant contribution of this research is the development of the prototype

Guidelines of Value Management Application for the Malaysian Construction

Industry (The VM Guidelines). This keeps to Shens (2004) proposal that, in order to

promote VM applications in a country, an established set of VM guidelines and

continuing government support are important for the progress and sustainability of

VM. He strongly believed that the clients and the consultants would be more receptive

and knowledgeable towards the concept of VM. It is hoped that the VM Guidelines

which would be a significant outcome of this research and would be used in the future

as a reference by the construction clients and their consultants interested to implement

the VM concept within their organisations. To be able to improve the consideration of

VM applications in the projects by using the proposed VM Guidelines, thus, the

continuous support from the government can be enlisted.

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