Managing supply chain disruptions in private construction projects: insights from Malaysian contractors

Fragmented supply chains in construction causes severe coordination issues, delays and transaction costs. Risk management is to counter the issues with supply chain but the divide between developed nations with developing and undeveloped nations have hampered the success of risk management. Countless research has extensively discussed construction supply chain challenges internationally. Nonetheless, there is a lack of literature that focuses on the supply chain disruptions faced by Malaysia’s private construction contractors. This research provides the context-specific assessment of supply chain disruptions faced by Malaysian contractors in the private sectors. This research aims to assess supply chain disruptions among contractor in private construction projects in Malaysia. Three (3) objectives are administered to achieve the research aim which are to identify the types of supply chain disruptions, to examine the causes if supply chain disruptions and to analyse the impact of supply chain disruptions among contractors in private construction projects in Malaysia. Quantitative research was conducted utilising questionnaire survey distributed to 150 registered G7 contractors in Klang Valley and Shah Alam. Descriptive analyses were administered using SPSS to demonstrate that the most common supply chain disruptors are material shortages, regulatory factors, and unresponsive suppliers. The underlying causes of supply chain disruptions are found to be economic instability and poor practices in risk management. The results also show that the most severe disruption is observed in the planning and construction stages where the parties involved in the project generally experience disagreements and court battles. This research identifies mitigation measures to overcome these disruptions such as diversification of suppliers, flexible contractual agreements and adoption of digital technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Applying these measures will help to improve the performance of the project delivery and the resilience of the private Malaysian construction sector.