Govt to increase incentives for IBS, BIM

> Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia says it has been engaging with the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA) to see what incentives can be adopted here

PETALING JAYA: The government is looking to increase incentives, both in terms of value and type, to further promote the use of Industrialised Building System (IBS) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Malaysia.

Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia (CIDB) general manager of technology development sector Ahmad Farrin Mokhtar ( pix) said it has been engaging with the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA) to see what incentives can be adopted here.

“We had a meeting with BCA. The programme that they have to really push for technology is very interesting. We are looking at how they apply the incentives that they have to push for the technology in Singapore. There are a few things, we are going to have a few more discussions with BCA, especially on incentives where we will try to apply the incentives here,” he said at the Rehda Property Forum held in April.

Ahmad Farrin said BCA has given out about S$800 million worth of incentives over eight years, which has helped to push the Singapore’s agenda of getting in new technology and achieving higher productivity of workers at the construction site.

“In comparison, incentives that we have, if we are talking about BIM, we only allocate about less than RM2 million per year. That’s quite a difference but we are looking into that, we are trying to look at how to increase the amount of incentives,” he added.

However, Ahmad Farrin said CIDB will study BCA’s concept of incentives to ensure that any incentives introduced here will have an impact on the industry.

Presently, CIDB provides 50% subsidy for courses on BIM conducted at its onestop BIM Centre. The BIM-related courses cost between RM900 and RM1,200 per person compared with RM3,000 to RM4,000 per person for courses held outside. Facilities such as the BIM studio are also available for a minimal fee at the BIM Centre.

CIDB also provides a free three-day professional course on IBS for consultants, developers and contractors. It has trained almost 2,000 professionals in the past two years. It has also trained about 10,000 construction personnel on the installation of IBS components.

In Singapore, at least 65% of a private condominium project’s component must be built using pre-fabricated pre-finished volumetric construction (PPVC). This means that most of the building will be in modular form and assembled on site.

Although Malaysia has yet to adopt PPVC, Ahmad Farrin believes there is a future for it here, especially in urban areas where there is space constraint at construction sites.

“That (adopting new technology) is the only way because we cannot go on doing the things we are doing right now. At this moment when we talk about IBS, people are talking about components, whether to use pre-cast or pre-fabricated but in developed countries, IBS itself is already conventional.

“They are already looking at new ways of doing things such as 3D printing … in the UK, they have produced a house using 3D printer. The size of the house is about 35 sq m and cost around £10,000 (RM54,000). There’s a future for new technology and new ways of doing things,” he said.

Ahmad Farrin said the construction industry cannot escape the adoption of IBS as Malaysia moves towards Industry 4.0. Although the initial investment is high, he said, the adoption of IBS could result in cost savings of 5-10% as it would reduce reliance on manpower, time and amount of financing while reducing wastage on site.