Citation

Kamar KAM, Hamid ZA, Azman MNA, Ahamad MSS. Int. J. Emerg. Sci. 2011; 1(2): 120-132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Islamia University of Bahawalpur)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Industrialized Building System (IBS) is the term to represent the prefabrication and construction industrialization concept in Malaysia. The term was coined to shift from the typical paradigm of prefabricated systems. IBS has been introduced as a method with better productivity, quality and safety. In a nutshell, however, the terms used in construction industrialization are ill defined, often interchangeably with other term and their precise definitions depend heavily on user’s experience and understanding, which vary from country to country. The lack of uniform definition and uncertainty in context and boundary contributed to the prejudices and misunderstanding. Many industrialized construction technologies co-exist with onsite work in hybrid construction, making it difficult to differentiate what constitute offsite practice. The definition and classification need to be evolved and incorporated with global views and understanding. This paper revisits the issue on definition and classification with respect to IBS. A conceptual definition has been proposed in this paper based on literature reviews. The classification of IBS should be expanded to cater for the scope of volumetric (modular) and hybrid construction. It is hoped that the concept highlighted in this paper will encourage positive debate on IBS and gain some attention from the practitioners and researchers at large.