Vol :37 Issue No.1 2012 - Open House International

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Md. Nasir Daud, Hasniyati Hamzah and Yasmin Mohd Adnan open house international Vol.37 No.1, March 2012 Examining The Potential For Mass Customisation... Figure 1. Typical units in a row of mass produced terrace houses in Shah Alam Figure 3. The end property has its car porch ceiling raised and the fence gate replaced with a motorised system. ment subsidies for industrial, flexible and demountable building (IFD) pilot projects (Van Gassel, 2002). A Dutch case study was provided by Cuperus (2003) to signify how the availability of Open Building and Lean Construction in the construction industry may contribute to the achievement of mass customisation goals. In Taiwan, a business strategy called ‘pre-sale’ has dominated the housing market especially in metropolitan areas, entailing an open dialogue between customers and the builder to achieve a common agreement on the design, cost and quality as a strategy to ensure customer satisfaction (Lai et al, 2004). During this stage, the builder is amenable to accommodating buyers’ input – albeit within the scope of possibility – while building has not entered physical construction. As is typical in many cities across Asia, the conventional housing market’s delivery of standardised products in Malaysia has the recognised incapacity to live up to individual purchasers’ exact 1 8 Figure 2. The top floor balcony is the owner's own addition to the property Figure 4. The renovation has involved a frontal extension of the upper floor to create additional living space. wants, with the purchasers often ending up making alterations to their properties as exemplified in Figures 1, 2 3 and 4. This presents a significant challenge for which, as the market grows in maturity, the introduction of innovative solutions via mass customisation is welcome. The Taiwan case raises an important issue with regard to the soundness of buyer decision-making process in a housing market offering mass customisation and buyers lack information and professional knowledge on a virtual building carrying myriad customisation possibilities. A partial solution is provided by the information technology, for instance a hybrid approach combining case-based reasoning (CBR) and genetic algorithm (GA) (Juan et al., 2006). With the increasing demand for housing customisation, suppliers bear the responsibility to offer customers customisable housing units, as well as to satisfy their needs and expectations within a preferred budget. Another catalyst to mass customisation is advancement in building technology. The
Industrialised Building System (IBS) describes the construction technology in which all building components such as wall, slab, beam, column and staircase are mass produced either in factory or at site factory under strict quality control and minimal wet site activities (Lim, 2006). Arguably, this system acts as a catalyst for mass production in construction. To further boost the industrialisation of the construction sector, manufacturing concepts are adopted including the Lean Construction originating from the car manufacturing industry aiming at reducing waste from design to delivery (Cuperus, 2003). The Open Building concept is also introduced whereby building occupiers determine specifications that best suit their needs, thereby creating the conduciveness for responsibility and care. The discussion of the literature above has however, through its emphasis on the production aspect, addressed mainly the supply side of mass customisation. An equally, and perhaps even more critical aspect is the demand side which needs to be assessed for an indication of the potential market reception to the concept. While performing the assessment may not be altogether straightforward, a considered approach is to study the prospective buyers in terms of their house-buying preferences and to examine actual buyers of standard mass produced housing units in terms of both their satisfaction on the delivered units and their subsequent actions on renovation. Examining the respondents’ responses and preferences will provide an understanding of the demand side behaviour and will allow certain perspectives to be gained with regard to the potential of mass customisation in Malaysia. C OLLECTING THE EVIDENCE As enumerated earlier, the concept of housing mass customisation is new to Malaysia. A comprehensive work on the potential of mass customisation would require an examination of both the demand and supply sides. The current study is useful in that it provides the starting point to the work. The prime motivation is that no data currently exists in relation to how ready consumers are for how housing mass customisation although such data is important to the housing industry. A questionnaire survey was adopted. Given that the main objective is to examine consumer readiness towards mass customised housing, the survey was designed with housing consumers as its target aiming to achieve a reasonable mix of owners and non-owners of property in the sample. The rationale for this approach is the consideration that both the owners and non-owners can provide useful indications concerning the desirability of mass customised housing from a prospective buyer’s point of view, while the owners can additionally provide indications of the satisfaction from the perspective of the purchaser who has actually taken delivery of developer’s standard house. In this manner, the data can allow the issue to be examined from two different perspectives with the added benefit that the comparison could lead to further insight. For sampling, a systematic procedure had been adopted while the stock of double-storey houses was taken as the sampling frame. Because systematic sampling had been used, the proportions for owners and non-owners had not been made to conform to certain a priori values but were instead allowed to follow the results of the random process that emanated from the procedure. Double-storey houses had been adopted as the sampling frame because this particular housing sector represents the largest inventory of mass-produced houses in the country in line with its popularity among house buyers. For the purpose of the sampling, the Peninsular Malaysia was divided into eastern and western regions. This way of dividing up the peninsula is not only geographic but also serves the demographic and economic reasons well. The two regions are differentiated on their economic dynamism with the latter showing generally more progressive and dynamic growths than the latter. In terms of the demography, the eastern region is more biased towards the Malay populace while the western region has a generally more balanced racial composition. To achieve the aim of this study, respondent samples were to be drawn from localities that would reflect the house buying population in each region. Based on this consideration, the cities of Kota Bharu and Kuala Trengganu had been chosen to represent the eastern region while Shah Alam and Kemuning the western region. A sample of 120 respondents was targeted for from each locality 1 9 open house international Vol.37 No.1, March 2012 Examining The Potential For Mass Customisation... Md. Nasir Daud, Hasniyati Hamzah and Yasmin Mohd Adnan
Page 1 and 2: open house international w w w . o
Page 3 and 4: Contents o pe n ho use inte rnat io
Page 5 and 6: Previous Issues Vol.36 No.2 2011 OP
Page 7 and 8: Editorial The composition and subje
Page 9 and 10: Figure 1. Lima: the PREVI quarter t
Page 11 and 12: Figure 3. Remodelling of PREVI hous
Page 13 and 14: Table 1. The three PREVI-PP1 techno
Page 15 and 16: Figure 9&10. Tabibloc: rationalised
Page 17 and 18: to evaluating technical capabilitie
Page 19: nition and custom treatment’ at t
Page 23 and 24: Table 2. Correspondence between sat
Page 25 and 26: Table 5. Aspects of respondents’
Page 27 and 28: Table 9. Counts on renovation jobs
Page 29 and 30: LARSON, K., INTILLE, S., MCLEISH, T
Page 31 and 32: 2008). Disaster preparedness relies
Page 33 and 34: especially when these agencies have
Page 35 and 36: STR ATEGIC PLANNING OF POST-DIS- A
Page 37 and 38: housing. The Ministry awarded the w
Page 39 and 40: Table 1. Importance placed on the v
Page 41 and 42: JOHNSON C. 2007, Impacts of prefabr
Page 43 and 44: Figure 1. Map of Old Seoul, the cir
Page 45 and 46: Figure 3. Remodeled hanoks in Bukch
Page 47 and 48: Figure 5. Although contemporary han
Page 49 and 50: R EF ERENCES ANDERSON, B.R. 1983, I
Page 51 and 52: cases, have been exclusively occupi
Page 53 and 54: typical floors with standard plans
Page 55 and 56: design creates a relationship betwe
Page 57 and 58: healthier building. Finally, Yeang
Page 59 and 60: Figure 7 a&b. The sky bridges as pu
Page 61 and 62: ing as a shading device. As the mai
Page 63 and 64: Figure 10. The reconsideration of t
Page 65 and 66: Figure 12. A diagram for the propos
Page 67 and 68: pleasant environment for residents
Page 69 and 70: (roof and facade) in whole or part;
Page 71 and 72:
DED [Department of Economic Develop
Page 73 and 74:
Abstract ENVIRONMENTS OF CHANGE: AN
Page 75 and 76:
of the poor in identifying and occu
Page 77 and 78:
Figure 1. Location of Phumolong inf
Page 79 and 80:
Figure 3. View of the informal sett
Page 81 and 82:
ate assembly. Hydraform dry-stackin
Page 83 and 84:
Figure 8. Phased growth of building
Page 85 and 86:
Abstract Ahmed Abu Al Haija Hundred
Page 87 and 88:
disciplinary approach, proposing so
Page 89 and 90:
egorize the different kinds of stru
Page 91 and 92:
Figure 8. Schematic plan of dwellin
Page 93 and 94:
Bardeschi, 2004). C ONC LU SIONS Th
Page 95 and 96:
Abstract A READING IN CRITICAL REGI
Page 97 and 98:
artificial, visual and tactile, myt
Page 99 and 100:
tion of the built environment (Fram
Page 101 and 102:
(Tümertekin, 2010). Tümertekin be
Page 103 and 104:
Figure 14. Rear View of the SM Hous
Page 105 and 106:
Figure 16. B2 House (photo by Cemal
Page 107 and 108:
DECISION MAKING FOR FLEXIBILITY IN
show all

Vol :37 Issue No.1 2012 - Open House International

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?