Gamuda IBS to aid in affordable housing plan

18 Dec 2018 | The Sun

Gamuda Bhd, which now has two Industrialised Building System (IBS) factories to produce 10,000 housing units a year, is well-positioned to help the government meet its target of 200,000 affordable housing units by 2020, as outlined in the 11th Malaysia Plan.

The first Gamuda digital IBS factory in Sepang is currently operating at maximum capacity producing 3,000 housing units annually.

Gamuda Industrial Building System Sdn Bhd general manager Tan Ek Khai said to meet the needs from anticipated growing demand in the housing sector, Gamuda IBS will be opening its second digital IBS factory on a 27-hectare site in Banting, soon.

“With our Banting factory, we will have the ability to produce 10,000 housing units per annum. It also produces a greater variety of products including double walls, the first of its kind in Malaysia and bathroom pods. Double walls, which are stronger and sturdier than single walls, enable us to build higher buildings of up to 50 floors, which helps address issues like limited land space,“ Tan told SunBiz.

Developers are able to design and build various types of buildings including high-rise, landed, schools, hospitals, commercial and factories. They can also range from luxury homes to quality affordable housing. The possibilities are limitless with Gamuda IBS,“ said Tan.

An enclosed environment in a factory benefits both the developer and client on many levels. There is no compromise in quality and productivity and at the same time, the development projects are completed on time, if not earlier. Apart from excellent quality assurance, having passed Sirim and fire rating tests, the products are also built with high precision, thus eliminating possibilities of material wastage.

“Both our factories are powered by Building Information Modelling (BIM), an online design tool which allows for the sharing and transfer of relevant information related to drawings, material supply, stockyard inventory and logistics, among others.

“This effectively brings down wastage to less than 1% and at the same time optimises efficiency and productivity,“ said Tan, adding that this environment-friendly method also keeps construction sites safe, clean and well-organised.

A Gamuda IBS home boasts spacious layout, high ceiling, smoother walls and levelled floor.

Gamuda IBS’ automated system promotes a safe and secure building environment. The panels and slabs are produced within a controlled factory setting which are then delivered to the construction site to be hoisted and assembled in a Lego-like manner.

“This enables the completion of one floor per week, cutting down construction time by almost 12 months. For high-rise development, conventional building methods usually take 36 months to complete whereas Gamuda IBS can do it in 24 months.”

This is proven by Gamuda Land’s track record of completing their Jade Hills Rumah Selangorku (RSKU) project in Kajang, within two years. The structural work of the project, comprising 714 housing units across three blocks, were completed within 12 months while the RSKU Kundang Estates, made up of 280 units in one block, took just six months.

It is currently building 664 units of RSKU at Gamuda Gardens in Sg Buloh, and other affordable housing projects for Selangor State Development Corp (PKNS) in Cyber Valley and Worldwide Holdings Bhd, in Puncak Alam.

Gamuda Land is also using IBS for its own housing projects, building a range of landed homes from terraced to bungalow lots at their existing projects like twentyfive.7, Gamuda Gardens and Gamuda Cove.

Apart from design flexibility, and strong and sturdy buildings, IBS-optimised homes have high ceiling, spacious layout and smoother finishing. House buyers also need not worry about leakages, which are commonly found in bathrooms.

Fully-fitted bathroom pods

Bathroom pods come complete with the required electrical, plumbing and ventilation connections, besides waterproofed walls, floors, fittings and quality finishes.

The Banting factory has a dedicated section to manufacture bathroom units and to this end, it has procured what is possibly Southeast Asia’s largest concrete casting mould. The factory has the capacity to produce 16,000 bathroom pods, of any types and sizes, annually.

The bathroom pods are fully-fitted with sanitary ware, basin and glass finishing, giving it a contemporary look and feel. They are made as a single seamless unit, devoid of any joints as each unit is already completed with all the required electrical, plumbing and ventilation connections, besides water-proofed walls, floors and fittings.

“For a precast bathroom, the entire unit will be hoisted by crane to the required floor and workers will just bolt the whole unit to the building, without applying any cement to the unit. If tiling is specified, the tiles would already be fitted in the factory, and not on site, thus contributing to a drastically cleaner and neater construction site.”

Clogged floor traps in new housing units are a bane to houseowners. With Gamuda IBS, the entire unit is already completed within the factory, eliminating any wet works at site – a common cause of blockage when poorly trained labourers push cement or other wastes like tile fragments into the floor trap to avoid doing a proper clean-up.

“The use of factory-made bathrooms will put an end to the shoddy habits such as improper construction waste disposal into the floor trap. It’s designed as plug-and-play units that speed up the entire housing construction process,” said Tan.

It is also renovation-friendly as the tiles can still be changed by the owner while the positions of fittings like mirrors can still be adjusted.

The Gamuda IBS advantage – Faster construction, safer, cleaner and less foreign manpower

IMAGINE getting your keys at least a year earlier and moving into a well-built home which only requires you to move your furniture in and decorate all you want without worrying about spending that extra money on renovating or removing awkward corners.

This is the complete picture house buyers get when they purchase a home built using Gamuda’s digital IBS technology. Gamuda IBS has changed the way IBS homes are built, shifting perceptions on what was once regarded as a boring and low quality construction method.

Today, Gamuda’s digital technology not only enables it to construct homes – of any type or size – at a much faster rate but also customise homes according to today’s market preferences. As a result, you get superior quality, trendy looking homes with fine finishes.

Gamuda IBS’ Banting factory’s double wall production section. The strong and sturdy double walls enable Gamuda to construct taller buildings that could go as high as 50 floors.

Gamuda Industrial Building System Sdn Bhd general manager Tan Ek Khai said Gamuda IBS is able cut down construction timeline significantly because its factory is powered by a robotic production system that can produce a high volume of housing units to meet the growing demand for housing.

“A fully automated system that does concreting, concrete curing, flexible foamwork moulding, cutting and mesh work helps produce one housing unit per hour at consistently high quality, allowing us to make up for the volume within a short period,” said Tan.

High quality and assurance

Besides a variety of products including solid walls, prestressed half slabs and special façade walls, all building materials are produced according to specifications within a controlled setting, making no compromise in terms of product quality.

For instance, its reinforced precast concrete is ISO certified by Sirim and QAS International. Gamuda IBS’ first project in Jade Hills also boasts a Quality Assessment System for Building Construction Works (Qlassic) score exceeding 70%, above the industry standard of 60% for affordable homes.

The Banting factory has a dedicated wing that builds a variety of bathroom pods and has the capacity to produce 16,000 bathroom pods yearly.

Cleaner, greener and safer construction

Gamuda IBS practices sustainable building solutions. Advanced robotic functions in the factories increases productivity and reduces wastage as all materials are produced according to the exact requirement, which also helps to maximise resources.

At site, the modular Lego-like construction method produces little waste materials unlike conventional sites, which are laden with piles of rubbish, wasted concrete and steel frames. There is also less noise and dust as a result of reduced heavy vehicles and machinery at site.

Reduces dependence on foreign and manual labour by 65%

Automation generally reduces the number of general workers, but increases skilled manpower, which also contributes to the pool of highly innovative and skilled workforce.

Over dependence on foreign labour has been an issue that has been plaguing the local construction industry for decades.

“With Gamuda’s digital IBS, we are not only upskilling local youths to be more technology savvy, we are also shifting the construction landscape by changing the way we build, said Tan.

Precast bathroom pods produced in a factory setting are hoisted and plugged in as a complete unit at site.

What is digital Industrialised Building System?

INDUSTRIALISED Building System (IBS) is a term used in Malaysia for a technique of construction whereby components are manufactured off site, and later installed at construction site. This is also known as precasting.

In 2003, the government approved the IBS Strategic Plan by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and the IBS Roadmap (2003-2010) to increase efficiency and productivity of the local construction industry.

This was followed by the IBS Roadmap (2011-2015) and the Construction Industry Transformation Programme (2016-2020), which pushes for a widespread usage of the IBS for a cleaner, greener and more efficient construction from the existential 3D image.

This led Gamuda to invest in the nation’s first digital IBS factory that would leverage on digital technology to build properties. The technology, powered by BIM, basically enabled the group to design, customise and produce a wide range of precast products according to clients’ specifications, in half the time, and with superior quality.

This is a significant step up from conventional IBS as homes built with digital IBS leverage on software and robotics automation.

Testament to its efficiency, high productivity and quality is the fact that all Gamuda Land landed properties will be built using Gamuda IBS.

“Digital IBS is widely used in Scandinavian countries, Germany, Singapore and Thailand. It is new to Malaysia. Previously, conventional precast was always associated with boring designs and was limited to high-rise development giving the impression that IBS can only build standard, boxy units and is easily prone to cracks and leakages.

Thousands of homes are produced in this vast automated factory space equipped with latest innovative design system and robotic production facility annually.

This perception is no longer a concern as digital IBS has the capability and flexibility to produce attractive designs according to clients’ needs and specification,” said Tan.