INTRODUCTION

Abdul Rahman et al. (2006) stated that

construction sector contribute a great
percentage to the economy in the growing
countries, which includes Malaysia
Recently, the construction industry in most
countries is associated with poor quality (Tam
and Tong, 1996). The lack of skilled labour in
this industry and poor management resulted
in poor workmanship in construction projects.
Besides that, potential clients today are well
informed of information from the construction
industry,
thus
becoming
increasingly
demanding in terms of quality towards their
potential purchases as these clients want to
get what they paid for in the first place. To
survive in the construction industry, the
industry players must deliver good quality
work which is worth the value of money of the
client by constantly improving and upgrading
themselves (Kam and Tang, 1997).
Hence, it is necessary to identify the source of
the problems and then find out the alternative
to solve it. By identifying the significant factors
that cause poor workmanship, it provided
more information about low quality of
building on construction projects to the
contractors. Therefore, the objectives of this
research are to identify the significant factors
that cause poor workmanship and to explore
the understanding of Quality Assessment
System in Construction (QLASSIC) as tool in
monitoring the quality of building in
construction project.
QUALITY
ASSESMENT
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

SYSTEMS

IN

Ho (1999) defined building evaluation as the

systematic
assessment
of
building
performance relative to defined objectives
and requirements. An effective quality
assessment system should be able to detect
and measure all types of defects and capture

all aspects of construction quality that affect

the performance of buildings. Such
measurements without proper and accurate
tests and detection methods, defects cannot
be detected. (Low, 2001)
Many countries had introduced quality
assurance assessments to ensure the quality
of building products and ultimately, the
construction industry (Kam & Abdul Hamid,
2012).
The
Construction
Industry
Development Board (CIDB) of Singapore had
taken several initiatives in promoting quality
building products in the past two decades.
CIDB
of
Singapore
first
introduced
Construction Quality Assessment System
(CONQUAS) in 1989 for public building and
Building Quality Assessment Service (BQAS) in
1991 for private sectors. In 1993, CIDB of
Singapore introduced Civil engineering
Construction Quality Assessment System (CE
CONQUAS) based on CONQUAS to measure
the quality of contractors and benchmarking
the value of quality into a more standard form
for better reference and understanding.
Besides that, due to the constant discovery of
poor building construction in Hong Kong, the
Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) had
adopted Performance Assessment Scoring
System (PASS) in 1990 based on Singapores
CONQUAS of 1989. Maintenance Assessment
Scoring System (MASS) was also developed to
evaluate and maintain the quality of buildings.
MALAYSIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND
SYSTEM ADOPTED
In Malaysia, construction industry can be
known as major productive sector since the
construction started in the early 1990s with
the development of mammoth projects (Abdul
Razak et al., 2010). It serves to get the
development and others while being a major
donor on the whole of economic
development. Thence, the Construction

Industry Development Board of Malaysia

(CIDB) is established in July 1994 which
delegated with the duty of managing the
necessitate and requirements of the
construction industry, planning the direction
of the building industry, addressing the
pertinent topics and troubles faced by the
construction industry, and also making
recommendations on the formulation of
policies for the building industry. (Kam &
Abdul Hamid, 2012) CIDB of Malaysia also had
adopted Singapores CONQUAS and created
their own quality assessment system known
as Quality Assessment System in Construction
(QLASSIC) to set benchmarks for the quality
performance of contractors in construction
works. In 2001, Quality Assessment System in
Construction (QLASSIC) was introduced by
CIDB of Malaysia. QLASSIC is used to measure
the workmanship quality of a completed
building project. There are three main
components: structural, architectural and
external works will be measured according to
QLASSIC assessment (CIS 7, 2006). The results
from the QLASSIC score can be an indicator to
a building quality as the QLASSIC assessment
is directly used to measure the workmanship
quality of completed projects (Chan, 2009).
FACTORS
CONTRIBUTE
TO
WORKMANSHIP IN CONSTRUCTION

POOR

According to Abdul Rahman et al. (1996), the

workmanship has been classified as one of the
mainly common non-conformance of the
construction site. Throughout literatures,
eight variables that interrelated to the drives
of poor quality in construction projects had
been ground out. The Variables are:
1. Poor project management
2. Complicated role of subcontractor
3. Lack experience and competency of
labours
4. Language barrier to communication
and lack of communication

5.
6.
7.
8.

Unsuitable construction equipments

Poor weather condition
Limited time
Limited cost