Journal of Building Performance ISSN: 2180-2106 Volume 10 Issue 2 2019 http://spaj.ukm.my/jsb/index.php/jbp/index Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia The Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia Page 51 Reliability Issues and Improvement of Preliminaries Cost Related Items For Civil Engineering Conventional Contracts Abdul Aziz Abas, Faridah Ismail, and Zulhabri Ismail* Faculty of Architecture, Planning And Surveying, University Teknologi Mara, MALAYSIA. *Corresponding author: drzulhabri.edu@gmail.com Abstract Civil engineering is a professional discipline that deals with built environment which involves physical construction of man-made structures such as roads, rails, bridges, drains, water supply, geotechnical systems, and services. It also deals with soft skills such as maintenance, research and investigation, conservation, and planning. In Malaysia, it is a prerogative that civil engineers administer civil engineering contracts. The preliminaries are an integral part of the bill of quantities and difficult to price due to their nature. However, the contractor is expected to price all items fully. The engineer prepares the preliminaries but the risk and liabilities are ultimately transferred to the contractor notwithstanding the reliability of the bill itself. As such, the reliability of preliminaries is of the utmost concern. The research focused on the improvement of the reliability of the preliminaries. The aim is to improve the effectiveness of present preliminaries in Civil Engineering conventional contracts. The objectives are, (1) To investigate the existing cost of item consideration and strategic approaches, (2) To improve the criteria of cost-related item components and expand their potential strategies. This paper considered previous research findings and highlighted the issues and problems related to the fallacy of the subject. Based on the preliminary survey (N=18), it was obvious that the issues concerning the reliability of preliminaries do exist. The research proceeded with a mass survey (N=270) of stratified data sampling involving Malaysian civil engineering contractors belonging to G7 CE21 class, as well as civil engineering consultants and developers. The survey used Likert scales, which ranged from 1 for “Strongly Disagree” to 5 for “Strongly Agree”. The analysis predominantly used SPSS statistics. The results conspicuously exposed the issues and the weaknesses of present practices. The improvement in the criteria of the present practices’ is expected to increase the reliability of preliminaries. As a way forward, the improved criteria provide better clarity, accuracy, and transparency to engineers and contractors as well as other construction players in general. Reliable preliminary items improve price accuracy for the betterment of the construction industry. Keywords: conventional contract, civil engineering contract, preliminaries, tender accuracy Article history: Submitted: 02/02/2019; Revised: 28/07/2019; Accepted: 07/08/2019; Online: 01/10/2019 INTRODUCTION Civil Engineering is a professional discipline that deals with the physical and naturally built environment with an emphasis on design and construction of the infrastructure work but not limited to roads, bridges, and dams (Columbia University, 2016; Lucas, 2014; Vera, 2013). To a wider extent, it also deals with nature which potentially exposes it to enormous challenges. Preliminaries are an integral part of the Bills of Quantities (BQ) (Abas et al., 2017; Gebreab, 2016; Turner & Townsend, 2018; Vera, 2013). Despite that, preliminaries are subjective and difficult to price (Abas et al., 2018; Adnan et al., 2011; Gebreab, 2016; Jimoh et al., 2011; Kammer, 2012; Keng, 2016; Yi, 2010). Abas et al. (2017b) found that the cost of preliminaries for civil work in the Malaysian construction industry is between 3.26% and 6.38% the amount of the construction cost. However, in the International Market Survey 2018, Turner & Townsend (2018) reported that the cost of materials has increased, and expected the preliminaries between 11% and 15% respectively for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this respect, the range of 3.26% and 6.38% of the preliminaries are deemed to be grossly low. The cause for this is interesting and needs to be investigated and one of the issues may be due to the reliability of the bill itself. The Civil Engineering contracts are usually prepared and administered by civil engineers (Columbia University, 2016; Jimoh et al., 2011; Lucas, 2014; Vera, 2013). Malaysia is no exception. In conventional contracts of Civil Engineering works, it is a common practice that the engineers establish tender documents that include preliminaries (Chan, 2016). The contractors then price cost items accordingly, and bear all responsibilities (Adnan et al., 2011; Gebreab, 2016;