A Review of Supply Chain Management Issues in Malaysian Industrialised Building System (IBS) Construction Industry

The construction industry is a complex and dynamic industrial sector. Malaysia, as a developing country, considers the construction industry as one main contributor of the country‟s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Due to the combination of problems and issues that have recently arisen in current construction methods, such as time delay, rising costs in raw materials, lack of communication and coordination, inefficient management, and many other problems, the government has come out with a new solution through an industrialisation technology called Industrialised Building System (IBS). However, after five years of implementation in the Malaysian construction industry, the acceptance level of IBS is still below government expectation. Supply chain management (SCM) is very much covered in the more glamorous industrial sectors such as electronics and manufacturing, and has the potential for improving and solving these problems. In-line with investigating this effort, this research paper aims to provide alternative solutions in addressing these problems. A survey of the current industry and application of SCM that fits in this industry needs to be performed. This research hopes to answer these problems and help toward the betterment of the construction industry in order to enhance the implementation of IBS in the Malaysian construction industry.