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Appendix A Survey Questionnaire

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 189 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 190 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 191 192 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 193 194 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 195 196 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 197 198 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 199 200 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 201 Appendix B Path Relationships Signiﬁcant at the 1% Signiﬁcance Level

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© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 205 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 Appendix D Path Relationships Signiﬁcant at the 10% Signiﬁcance Level

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 207 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 Appendix E Path Relationships Signiﬁcant at the 25% Signiﬁcance Level

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© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 211 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 Appendix G Case Study Interview with Mr. A

Mr. A Date of interview: 7 December 2017 Time of interview: 3pm to 4pm BCA CRS grading of current company: A1 Contractor Position in the company: Senior QA/QC Manager Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

The ﬁrst question, when did you join the company? 1996.

Why are some of your company’s projects under the Construction Quality Assessment Scheme (CONQUAS) while others are under the quality mark (QM) scheme? These two schemes are different. CONQUAS is compulsory for public housing projects. Beside these private projects, we also go for CONQUAS. By doing QM, we believe that the score will be better because QM score will be translated to architectural score so that helps the overall CONQUAS score. On top of that, we believe that by subjecting our projects to QM, we will produce better quality units. And of course QM is an initiative by developers. Otherwise it has been tradition and we have been doing that.

When I look at CONQUAS scoring, I realized that Architectural scored the lowest among the three. Why? Yes, it’s always the case for most Contractors. Because in a construction site, I believe during your attachment, you went through the process. In terms of structural works it’s relatively speaking, straightforward. Furthermore, sampling can be done

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 213 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 214 Appendix G: Case Study Interview with Mr. A and this makes it easier to control because, on the construction site, structural works subcontractor is usually a single guy. He does everything; he does concreting, he does formwork, he does rebar. Easier to manage. For that matter CONQUAS score tends to be higher. MEP, also not that difﬁcult, as it’s based on whether the work follows the drawings or not. But, architectural trade is more complicated. There are many trades involved, and they are interdependent. So somehow, it’s not easy to control or manage the quality so as to speak. And many a times, quality suffers when the sequencing is wrong. Why sequencing is wrong? Because of rushing to meet the deadline. So we compromise. Look at the number of workers involved in the construction site. You see that most workers are in the architectural trade and there are a lot of dependencies. So once one guy fails, the others will suffer.

Over your past ﬁfteen years of experience with your current company, do you notice any dips in construction quality due to any particular reason? I don’t remember any sudden dip in the past, as far as our company is concerned. I don’t know about the others. Because as long as you have a culture and as long as you have a team to look at, manage the quality, more or less the standard will be there. Especially so when, just now I mentioned, CONQUAS, QM, that is the yardstick that will help to track and monitor our performance. So, unless you don’t have a standard, then it will drop, without knowing.

The past CONQUAS score for your company is in fact much higher than past CONQUAS score in some of the recession years in 1998, 2001 global IT meltdown, 2002, 2003 SARS period which dragged on to 2004, 2008 ﬁnancial crisis, and now we have the looming technical recession. Just by looking at the periods of recession, I realize that many of your company’s CONQUAS scored relatively poorly in the recession years. Why? Of course, from the earlier years, we are lower. Same with all the other Contractors. I think it’s typical of all the Contractors. Because slowly they know what is expected of them. They know how to score better so it gets better and better. (Interviewee looking through CONQUAS trends that interviewer handed him): This is school (pointing to the 2001/2002 period). School cannot be compared with residential. This is school again. I can tell. I don’t think so. If you ask me, I don’t think so. The trend for my company is going up. We plotted this out before.

Can you point out two projects that the construction quality is not as good compared to the rest of your track records? As I mentioned, one of the school projects we didn’t do quite well as it was an institution and we have no experience in that before. I was involved in that project actually. One of the reasons was because that project went into delay. Of course quality will not be the priority. And it is time that matters most. So for that matter, it suffers. So, if you ask me, this school project is one of the not as good ones. We have another school around the same time scoring better 78.7. That school went Appendix G: Case Study Interview with Mr. A 215 relatively smoother than mine so it most likely translates into higher quality. So it’s mostly Addition and Alteration (A&A) works and it’s relatively simpler. It boils down to whether you have the time or not. So is this project affected by economic situation, deﬁnitely, not clear here. But, there should be some kind of relationship. When the pricing is low, you tend to get the subcontractors that are not that competent. They are not competent, we will be expecting delay. When there is a delay, there will be a rush. When you rush, I think you study before, time, cost and quality, you should suffer from quality. There is no doubt about that. So this is one but the other one, I can’t ﬁnd another one. More or less it is the same, I can’t really pin point. The rest are more or less there.

Is there any project that has cost constraints? Not really. The thing is that this is our client project. When you talk about client project, most of them are our own projects. We have two companies here, the developer and the contractor. So basically, there won’t be so much of an issue pertaining to cost. If we do external then it’s another story. So if there is anything you compare Housing and Development Board (HDB), those are external projects. We are quite familiar with HDB so, more or less it’s there. 80 plus 90 plus, the next thing we are moving into the CONQUAS star, we have not gotten a CONQUAS star for HDB. We got three projects ending about the same time, end of this year, so we are aiming for that. The trend is going up and there is no signiﬁcant drop.

Based on your experience, what do you think are the impacts of recession on the industry? Economic recession comes there is not enough projects and people cut throat to get projects. Actually it’s happening now also, HDB price keep dropping until we don’t want to tender. Building and Construction Authority (BCA) are also warning the industry not to drop the price like that. So, if you ask me, deﬁnitely there’s an impact, whoever gets the job in order to make some proﬁt out of it, they will compromise something. But of course, material wise they can’t compromise much because some how they need to be approved, the materials have to come from an approved supplier. There is some control there by HDB, but workmanship will suffer. Subcontractor, same thing, you give them low price they will not put in their best team or they will not put in adequate manpower. So we need to watch for workmanship. When in a rush, you suffer. But the good thing is that we have an internal team, a quality team that cushions it, to salvage the situation better. Then we make sure that all the sites, standards are there, at least some minimum standards are there. Without a team, you leave it to a project, then it will happen like what you say, we will suffer. 216 Appendix G: Case Study Interview with Mr. A

Do you think the prices of the materials and labor ﬂuctuates due to the recession? Deﬁnitely the case. Free market. Depends on the economic conditions.

Will the impacts on the project be significant? Will be significant. We will be concerned especially when the project duration is long, like a four year five year period. Then, it will affect your bottom line.

Do you still remember the number of bidders for the school project?

Six or seven. It’s not high. Average will be twenty to be considered high. It is hard to say, if not enough job, people go in. If you already have current job at hand, people are not interested to go in.

How was competition like in the bidding stage of the school project? Sometimes it’s not directly linked to economic situation. Like for this school project, if the boss wants to do it, it could be due to reputational reasons and not really about making a lot of proﬁt. In this case, price will be low to get the job.

What was the gap between the lowest bid and the next lowest bid? It’s actually a big gap, big gap. That also explains why we run into delay. I myself am not involved in the bidding, but roughly I know the ﬁgure and the second position was very surprised that they didn’t get the job. It could be they tried their best and lowered their price, but we were lower than them. So that kind of situation arises. As we got the budget there, in terms of subcontractor control, it is tighter.

Do you agree that economic recession leads to larger risks in construction project? Not really because risk can come from many sources; complexity of project, prices of material etc.

When your company bid at very low profit margins such as the case of the school project, does this forces your company to reduce manpower or to cut cost? As far as we are concerned maybe what we usually will do is to negotiate with our subcontractors on the pricing. But in terms of internal resources, we don’t really cut. Because by cutting we are worried that we might not be able to complete the work on time or run into liquidated damages. Usually the prelim and overhead all this we don’t really cut that much. But contract is more or less managed by the project team. But the contract we are managing the subcontractors. From the start they know what the profit margin ratio is. They have their own budget in order to meet that kind of profit margins. So big bulk is come from the subcontractor. We are main con managing the subcontractor, so we control from that angle. Again, if let’s Appendix G: Case Study Interview with Mr. A 217 say we find someone that can give us low price, tendency is that they cannot perform so well.

With regards to the school project again, is there any issue on cash flow or bank defaulting on loans? This question very sensitive. Confidential. We (as project managers) don’t have the figures to point that out. I was the PM there. Cash flow problem even if there is, no one would tell you. Cash flow thing is in and out, in and out. You know even if red color also doesn’t matter. As long as the bank is willing to lend you money. But we will not reach the stage where we do not have enough money to pay the subcontractors. Not that serious. That will be a cash flow problem.

Were there any hiccups then with regards to cash ﬂow? No big issues because like what you say, we don’t just do school, we have other projects. Furthermore, we know the bank well. They also know our track record.

For the supply chain issues you mentioned, recently, there is a newspaper article stating that firms cut cost and corners when they bid at very low prices at the construction stages. Definitely, if you want to survive, you have to somehow find ways to cut cost. Cutting costs is definitely something that we will do. But cutting corners is another thing. As far as the main contractor is concerned, we will try to avoid doing all these things. Because government projects are now doing Price Quality Method (PQM), you can be blacklisted or put into the limelight for cutting corners, you suffer. You cannot get a job and you must bear that in mind. You see nowadays, it is not just pricing. It is also about track record on the past, whether you get all the demerit point, all these things. It happened to me. We really suffer that time. We want job, but no one gives us any job. So to cut corners as long as we are concerned, we will not do that. However, sometimes our subcontractors cut corners without our knowledge. They also need to survive. So for that we have to manage them. We have to really control.

So what’s the reason they cut corners? They know how to save that, ﬁnd ways to save that because it’s all architectural trade. Rebar must be there, lapping man must be there. I think you as an engineer you must know. All these things are things that you cannot run away from. But somehow, architectural trade you can. So many types of material, in terms of materials there is various quality. There is a way to cut corners as long as our subcontractors are concerned. For example, painting, you can cut corners. 218 Appendix G: Case Study Interview with Mr. A

What are some of the strategies or characteristics of your company that makes you not cut corner. In other words, why others cut you don’t cut? It’s the culture. Our management does not allow cutting corners, so we will not dare to do so as we got to answer for it. It is not in our culture to do all these things, no matter how hard it is, we just try our best. Like what I said, sometimes if the subcontractor does it then we suffer.

What are the impacts on the industry from such government interventions? Of course it helps, because at this point in time, there are not many projects, all this cut cost things will come in. When you have all these small projects coming in, all these will help the smaller contractors to have something to work on. I think the impact will be on the industry as a whole; the net. Making them still viable. Companies manage to sustain their businesses; people get jobs, that kind of thing. If not the SME, they close down, people suffer, jobless. That is how I see it. I mean this is not for everybody to get a share of all these.

When you say not for everybody? Because we are main contractor, we do big job. These are the smaller ones; they cut the big cake into pieces. So smaller contractors it will help them.

Impact on your company? Not really. Not so much.

What is your opinion on the effectiveness of the existing governmental efforts such as government pump-priming in alleviating the impacts of economic recessions? Deﬁnitely it helps. People are not so hungry so they will not resort to cutting costs so much. Better price. All this measures by the government will help the industry to some extent. But how much, it is hard to quantify. Very much depends on the companies, what is their culture, what is their emphasis. Will they forego Safety or quality just for the sake of making money.

Thank you Mr. A. Appendix H Case Study Interview with Mr. B

Mr. B Date of interview: 14 December 2017 Time of interview: 10am to 11am BCA CRS grading of current company: A1 Contractor Position in the company: Chief Operating Ofﬁcer Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

When did you join? Nine years ago. June next year will be nine years.

Here is the CONQUAS score, this is the ﬁnal scoring, and the columns here indicate how they have broken down the scoring into structural, architectural and Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) scores. Architectural is most of the time the lowest. Why is this so? Structure can produce very high score. We use precast now. With technology we produce good quality components. Architectural, we need labor and skilled labors sometimes. But the government is trying to change that by doing a lot more of this architectural works in the factory rather than on site. Imagine if you were to do it on site, there are going to be a lot of work and coordination of different trades. Take for example, the bathroom, a complicated place and a small area. But there are a lot of trades like mirrors, lights, architectural ﬁnishes tiles and electrical works. So to coordinate it on site will be quite challenging depending on the weather. I think the government is trying to move it off site in the factory to work under controlled environment without depending on the weather. You can do it like a production line and sequence the whole.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 219 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 220 Appendix H: Case Study Interview with Mr. B

Over the past nine years, do you notice any sudden drop in construction quality in your company? In fact I noticed an improvement in construction quality. And more so because there is progress in terms of adopting technology and also a strong component of what the government is pushing with regards to Design for Manufacturing (DFMA), Prefabricated Preﬁnished Volumetric Construction (PPVC), Public Bathroom Units (PBUs) manufacturing and assembly on site concept. I see a lot more improvement in quality. Because with use of technology and methodology being changed, you can see better products out in the market.

Based on the company’s CONQUAS score, like you said there is an improvement. But in the early years, in 2001 to 2004 CONQUAS score are very low where there is an economic recession. What do you think is the reason? There a correlation between construction quality and economic conditions?

I surveyed 30 other companies and observed a relationship. I don’t think there is a correlation. Okay because your economic conditions affects your pricing but the use of labor and your product is how you plan and what kind of technology you use. So in an economic recession your labor price and material price comes down as well so I don’t see a direct correlation between quality and economic condition theoretically.

One of the things we have proven is that in an economic recession, bid prices generally become lower reflecting lower profit margins. From there, workmanship quality will suffer due to the low price that they got the project for. You see, if there are not enough jobs in the market a lot of people will price it competitively and they will price it in order to get the jobs. So pricing becomes very important. Pricing is not dependent on how well the economy is doing but depending on how many jobs are available in the market. Take for example, the last four years, the real estate market has been dropping. There are not many jobs in the market, but the civil jobs backed up by the government has been moving up. So when can you say that the economic condition has been down? The building jobs have been in shortage, but a lot of contractors bid for civil jobs like MRT. So they may be very competitive and that is coupled by the fact that steel prices concrete prices dropped by half since 2010 to 2015. They are able to price it lower because the material prices went down labor price come down even though levy went up they are forced to use technology. So personally, I am not so sure that there is a correlation between CONQUAS and economic recession. Yes, maybe profit margins is squeezed, unless the contractor is not a reputable one looking for sustainable long-term presence in the market. Because the poor quality can kill you because to rebuild the damage by your poor quality can cost you more then to spend upfront. Quality is very important for the company to survive in the long term. We also seek Appendix H: Case Study Interview with Mr. B 221 to uphold the CONQUAS score or architectural finishes at the end of the day in the market. That’s what the company believes in and that’s what I think a reputable contractor should behave. What my company tries to do to counter the economic recession is to invest in technology to do processes better therefore bring your price down to be more competitive in the bidding process. You see in 2000, the Yew Mei Green project this was when I’m in Choice Home, at that point in time the CONQUAS score framework is not well established I think over the years they were able to improve it. I think it just started around that time so a lot of people were trying to get used to the framework. So over the years they were able to identify what are the critical things in the CONQUAS framework and therefore focus on those to improve it. That could partly explain why in the early years the CONQUAS score is lower than the current ones.

With regards to an anomaly in 2002, one of your project scored 86.1 which is high compared to the projects in 2003/2004. Why? It depends on the clients and the supervision if the client has a very strict standard then the contractor have to comply. If you look at those with high CONQUAS score a lot are from City Development Ltd. City Development Ltd, they impose very high standards on quality. So that can be a reason as well, be it recession or not.

What are your general view on economic recessions and its impacts on the construction industry? You see construction industry is very reliant on labor, not skilled labor but actually workers. To a certain extent in economic recession there will be fewer jobs in the market but the government will push out more infrastructure jobs so there will be a counter measure to keep the amount of value of jobs about the same level if not higher. Taking aside the government’s role looking at the private sector, you will see a drop in the number of jobs. And because there are so many contractors in the market there will be fierce competition. People bid for different reasons. Some more established ones will not wish to enter a bidding war. Some feel they need to survive if not if they retrench, they will have to build their team capability all over again. They will bid even if they lose money. Of course, after they bid for the jobs, they will have to find ways to save cost. Now, if the contractor saves costs by looking at better ways of doing things like improving productivity and adopting technologies, it is fine. But if they reduce cost by cutting corners by using inferior products you will see a drop in quality. It depends on the contractors. The bigger foreign contractors will not sacrifice their reputation to cut corners. It is the same for the big Singapore contractors as well. So economic recession will affect quality to a certain extent but that depends on the company’s philosophy and their principles. 222 Appendix H: Case Study Interview with Mr. B

Are there any projects out of this list (i.e. the list of projects that Mr. B’s company has undertaken) where construction quality is not as good? All those that are under choice home their quality are good because high standards are exerted. Those under City Development Ltd., high standards are also exerted. Industrial quality is quite poor; it suffers from architectural finishes. The structural score is always very high, but the architectural score is always very low. Like for this industrial building, there are very few architecture finishes. And I don’t know how they mark the quality for this architecture finishes. Usually for residential architecture finishes can be quite high. This is one of the highest scores in the market. This institution you see architecture finishes drop. So overall I think the CONQUAS score may be bias from one building type to another. Because in residential there are a lot of architecture finishes like tiles and paintings. But in industrial there is not much. So, if you ask me if there are any projects that CONQUAS is not well, we must separate it into residential industrial and institutions. The residential projects I don’t see them doing badly. The low ones are the institutions and industrial ones dragged down by architecture finishes. In fact, the residential ones are done quite well. I don’t see any projects that have not done well. But for our company the architecture is always high partly because we use precast components. It is manufactured in the factory and brought to site and stacked up. Using precast that is automated the quality will be much better.

Do you think it is true that the higher the risk of the project the higher the bid amount to account for the risk? Naturally for bidding, your price is always equal to your cost plus proﬁt plus risk. And your risks have two components. If you are overseas then it is a country risk plus whether it is interest rate risk or operational risk. They will also look at the client to see whether they can pay or not. They also look at the material price risks. For contractors that price for jobs, they will naturally look at those risks and input a ﬁgure to the price. But the price depends on the contractor. For bigger contractors, their risk appetite is much bigger. So sometimes they don’t think that it is a risk. You can see from the bidding, the big company may be more aggressive.

Do you agree that in an economic recession the risk will be higher for a construction project? If yes, bid price should be rising during times of economic recession. Hence, why does bid price fall instead? The fall in price in bids can be caused by an accumulation of a number of factors. Risk may be one of them as I said they are worried that the clients cannot pay but (pause) I don’t think that’s a big risk especially for residential projects. More importantly, they look at the costs of your material and labor price, the input cost. In an economic recession these will fall as well so naturally your bid will fall. If you continue to stay at that high price you won’t be able to get the job. That is why those contractors that make money are those that bid before the recession comes. Because when they bid the price, the price is based on the material labor price at Appendix H: Case Study Interview with Mr. B 223 that point in time. When recession suddenly comes, all the prices goes down because there is a time lag when they are procuring your materials, so they enjoy the beneﬁt of a lower price with a higher bid. In a recession, they will be looking at when they bid. As I said, cost forms an important component, margin is the next component and risks becomes the third component so in a recession when the cost drops naturally your bid price falls that forms a bigger component in the drop compared to the risks.

In an economic recession, do you see supply chain issues being a possible problem for your company? Possible. Because we are a main contractor, we are going to have material supplier and labor suppliers etc. If let’s say for example in a recession whatever price you have ﬁxed upfront, especially when the economy is turning around that is going to be worse for contractor than when the economy is going into recession. For example, if let’s say I got this job at this price just before recession, I can still afford to pay but when I price it at this price during an economic recession and when the market turns around, this material prices I commit to you at such a low price, in fact can be sold higher elsewhere. So you may have shortages and delays in deliveries. They will sell it to people who offer higher prices, or their factory may insist on higher prices because the prices have gone up. So yes prices will change when the economy is up or down.

What about the subcontractors under your company? Do you see them affecting your projects during recessionary times? You see that’s why we always uphold good relationship with our subcontractors. And we do it in such a way when we have technology that we want to introduce; we also train them to become part of us. And when we want to use this technology, they are familiar, and we don’t have to waste time to teach new subcontractors. They will stay with you a long time. Naturally, the bonding will overcome the pricing. Through thick and thin they will stick with you. Of course, the main contractors have to be fair in adjusting the rates. When the economy recovers, the subcontractors may divert their labor somewhere else when they are prepared to pay higher rates compared to what you are offering because the contracts last two to three years, you never know the economic conditions during the period.

For some of the smaller contractors, they expressed more concerns. Yes they always have these difﬁculties; you can’t ﬁnd people. For the resort world, there are shortage of cranes and crane operators. Every contractor is scrambling but the big ones were able to pay. The smaller ones end up with nobody. Hence, there is project delay. 224 Appendix H: Case Study Interview with Mr. B

For your company, are there any ﬁnancing issues? Construction is a cash ﬂow business, not a real estate business which is a capital-intensive business. So we don’t really borrow a lot as the developer will pay. If they cannot pay, that is also a risk that we will factor in. So generally, no problem.

Recently in a newspaper article, Minister Lawrence Wong stated that in bad times contractors cut corners when they bid aggressively. Why do you think these companies cut corners? To survive. Sometimes these big companies especially international contractors, the world is their market. To a certain extent they have what you call proﬁt centre so if they lose here and make here, it will keep it balanced out. Singapore contractors on the other hand, only have Singapore as its market. We don’t go overseas, we can’t compete overseas. So the fate rests with the Singapore economy. When there is economic recession there is no way to counter balance the effects of recession on their company. For them to survive there are two options: bite the bullet and the other is to cut corners just to stay aﬂoat.

Regarding government pump-priming and its effects, what do you think are the effects of government pump-priming on the industry and the firm level when they add more jobs to the industry? Singapore government have been doing it for many years especially when there is an economic recession. For two reasons; one is they want push the economy up and second they want to build cheaper. Let’s say if they were to build an MRT station in good times, the price will be very high as you are competing with resources already scarce. Now as to whether if they have an effect to local economy, to a certain extent it has but to a certain extent it doesn’t. Reason is because Singapore construction market is a very open market. There is hardly any barrier to entry. (pause) Although the government says needs to have certain grading, all those big companies can get it easily. When the government pump in jobs to the market, who gets the jobs? If you look at MRT and airport jobs in the past a lot are given to foreigners. Locals stand no chance. It is due to two reasons. One is the technical capability. Second is the lack of resources and financial resources. Only recently, some of the locals are getting the jobs. Pump-priming will benefit local companies if they are able to get those jobs. Otherwise I don’t think there is any effect on them. But if the foreign company value chain is still local companies, it may benefit individual companies.

Thank you Mr. B. Appendix I Case Study Interview with Mr. C

Mr. C Date of interview: 11 December 2017 Time of interview: 1.30pm to 2.30pm BCA CRS grading of current company: A2 Contractor Position in the company: General Manager Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

When did you join this company? Last year (2016) May.

The next question, I noticed one of your projects went for CONQUAS Yes. Usually only for building projects we go for CONQUAS and it is actually spelt out by the client.

Why is the architectural score the lowest among the three scores? There is a lot of subjectivity in architectural works. When it comes to architectural, when you see the projects that we have here, they are mainly architectural in nature. For this particular project (P.S. project name kept confidential to maintain confidentiality of Mr. C’s identity) to be honest with you, the extent of the works, we do have some commercial disputes with the client. But along the way, I think the project also have a lot of challenges because the architect and client wanted a lot of changes. Building structure can’t change much because that’s the first piling that goes and once your piling goes, you have very little room left to do your building structure. Whereas for architectural works, you can do a lot of wonders, change here and there which I will say is still a common phenomenon now, that you will see a lot of changes by the client, especially private clients. Having said that, I also think that you should look at the context that this is actually an industrial building. Whereas compared to those seasoned players, seasoned developers, they are very

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 225 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 226 Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C familiar with what they want upfront rather than it being an Ad-hoc one-off project where by the clients are not very clear of exactly what they want. So, things get a little bit more complicated when things start to change along the way. We hardly have all this kind of problems for MRT projects or all those where the clients already knew upfront what they wanted, what is called for them, things get a lot easier. So you don’t get so many changes such that next moment before you start construction they say they want to change again and it is a problem in the industry. But then, no excuses, there are also problems with sometimes workmanship because at the end of the day you still have to subcontract. Being a main contractor of the project, I will say that you are only as strong as your contractors. The strength of yourself unless you do all the trades, all the ﬁnishing work yourself by your own workers, then you can control. But honestly speaking, I hardly come across main contractors who does all this work on their own using their own workers. Usually you subcontract it. Sometimes if you get a cheap guy, your quality may be affected.

From your understanding of your company, are there any two projects you feel that the quality is not as well because of certain reasons? It is a bit difﬁcult for us to comment as we have few projects that go for CONQUAS. Even for government projects such as LTA projects, there is no speciﬁcation for CONQUAS. You cannot do CONQUAS if you are not the main contractor.

How does your company monitor the quality of works? This depends on whether you are the main or subcontractor. If you are the main contractor, you will go around supervising the quality of all the subcontractors. Most of our works are subcontractor works. It is for us to go around with our own supervisors to monitor the quality. This does not mean you can get away with it. The main contractor and client will come in to monitor your quality as well. We do our ﬁrst cut while the main contractors have their own quality ofﬁcer to assess whether they accept the quality.

So is there any project that has more demand from the clients for you all to redo the work? Okay architectural work encounters the most problem. They will monitor superfi- cial things such as whether your concrete ceiling is well made and all other finishing work. So quality is very much penalized only in architectural. Specifically on whether any particular project that face more, I would say that even for MRT projects there are stations whereby LTA staffs are more stringent with their checks compared to other stations. So even for the eight stations we have done, the standards can defer. It depends on how comfortable and how conversant they are about architectural trades. In them wanting to get it rectified some think that it is okay but some other guy will think it is unacceptable so it’s very subjective for architectural. So I wouldn’t say there is any particular project but we do encounter Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C 227 projects where the client team so called the resident technical officers and resident engineers are very particular. For example, the resident technical officer themselves will specify that we must do this, such as the paintings where they want a uniform grayish color, which is not the norm.

When there is an economic recession, what are some of the notable impacts on the industry? One is the layout of staffs that is definite. Staff includes workers. The first group that is affected is the workers being laid out first. Because if the workers are idling, there is no reason for the company to hire them. Depending on things like MYE, one worker can cost you about $2000; not their salary but levy alone is about $950 which we have to pay a huge chunk to the government be it whether they are doing work or not. Second is their accommodation, their lodging and their transport. So why would companies hold on to workers when there is no work. With less projects, more staffs are laid out. The project volumes dropped drastically which is why 2017 is a bad year for the industry. It is a snowball effect from 2016. In 2016, companies still have projects. However, in 2017, many find that there are very few projects to roll. Many companies, subcontractors and main contractors rolled up. We have main contractors owing us money, almost on the verge of bankruptcy until someone else bought it over. We have to do some commercial settlement to finalize the deal such as a huge discount to close the contract. Taking whatever money and running away with it is better than taking nothing when they are bankrupt.

Were there any projects that your company took in 2016? Yes. We have existing ongoing contracts. Honestly, we had contacts that were quite healthy until somewhere this year. This year we only have about ﬁve new contracts of which three of them are MRT stations, which is very tough because MRT stations do not have any work for the next or ﬁrst six to nine months. You need to get your materials approved and many submissions samples need to go in before they can give you approval to start work. We did a project that is alright and one ongoing one. So these are some of the projects that are keeping us going. We have another new project in October as well.

For one of your MRT projects, in 2016 can you name one project where there are staffs being laid off? When the project ends, naturally the team will move on to other projects. There were three MRT stations we were doing last year, X, Y and Z station (P.S. stations name kept confidential). Technically, X and Y certified completion is 30 December 2016. The Z station has only been completed two or three months back which was when the government open the new MRT line last year. That is why when we finish the project, we did not have enough workers to move on to the next stations. We had to lay off quite a number of workers after the project. 228 Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C

For the Z station? That is still ongoing. Because the government has to extend the whole contract, the whole extension of time (EOT) was granted for the project. Everything including the opening was delayed. So, for that station we managed to keep our workers ongoing.

Were there any workers that are laid off during the project? Project Z, I have laid off two staffs. It is due to their performance, not the recession. As I feel they did not produce work that deserved their salary, I have to serve them notice. I also have staffs that did not want to do the work they were supposed to do. He wanted to be a driver. But it is impossible to give him that amount of salary just to be a driver. So we had a mutual agreement for him to leave the company.

So for this kind of projects where you do architectural works for the company, usually how many bidders are there? Usually, because these are all subcontractors, some of them are actually called by LTA for tender themselves. Some stations LTA shortlist the contractors to tenderers. So for this kind you have only about six bidders. While for some where you bid directly to the main contractor, it is more challenging where there are about eight or even ten bidders. But for a project like POBs and pedestrian bridges, you can easily have a lot of people queuing up. To see how bad the market is, you can attend any tender brieﬁng. I’ve never encountered so many tenderers, 40 over, just for a bus interchange project. This is unheard of but is happening now due to a shortage of projects. I would say that in that sense the architectural trade is still being protected. It is not like it is in the red ocean but between blue and red. You can see more and more subcontractors trying to come into this sector because there are not enough building projects. The private sector has died. Only the government sectors and Housing and Development Board contracts are remaining. So many subcontractors have been migrating to this sector. I used to believe that architectural is in the blue ocean. Earlier days, four to ﬁve bidders is the norm but now I would say it is higher.

Are there any projects you experienced much higher competitions with more bidders? Building projects. Building projects have many bidders. That’s why we prefer not to do building projects.

So this is true across the industry? Yes, building projects are now in shortage too. We were lucky we did one invitation tender there are only 4 bidders for the building project which is unheard of partly because the consultant did not want to do much work. When the number of bidders go up, the amount of work the consultant needs to do goes up a lot more. Anyway, Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C 229 it is a private client if the client is able to meet the minimum three quotations they are happy already. Yes that’s where our strategy is. I don’t like to go head on such as ﬁghting over price undercutting. I prefer to be selective over my projects so that i can maximize our hit rate.

What about your MRT projects The recent one we started on is Project W (P.S. project name kept conﬁdential to maintain conﬁdentiality of Mr. C). One of the station we have eight bidders while the other only have six and for another, we have four. It ranges.

These are done over the same period? Yes around last year 2016. So it stretches over to early this year. That’s why the award only comes in around second quarter of this year.

So the number of bidders ranges, why? It is also due to the complexity of the project. Some companies cannot take the entire architectural work. If I am the main contractor, I will prefer one guy take care of everything so I don’t have to hire more staffs to keep track of subcontractors. But depending on the nature of the projects, some subcontractors will tell you they can’t do this or that, or that they cannot take the entire package. However, for us, we take the entire package.

So for the MRT station with eight bidders compared to the one with four bidders. Is your pricing strategy different? Yes. We will have to be more conscious about our pricing strategy. We have to ﬁnd out our potential competitors for these projects. For example, if I know this ABC company is a diver, why would we bid with this ABC. If you want to dive, you go ahead and dive. We will just move on to other projects.

So the one with eight bidders what is the project name? That one is the project for station V (P.S. station name kept conﬁdential to maintain conﬁdentiality of Mr. C).

The one with four bidders? That one is project U (P.S. project name kept conﬁdential to maintain conﬁden- tiality of Mr. C). This is a bit more challenging because they have a lot of challenging designs including the whole structural steel for one whole entrance area. But also, partly because some of the main contractors themselves wanted only one a single company to take care of everything. They are not willing to tear apart. Because if you tear apart you can get a lot of quotes from the smaller guys. But if you keep them in one single package you can limit the number of players in the market. 230 Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C

Do you agree that the higher the risk for the project the higher the bid price? Maybe partially you are right, for the other half you must see how hungry the company is. If you are full already why would you bid for a cheap price. While if you have zero projects for the year, you will be one of the hungriest person in the whole tender so you will probably do it at 1% or zero markup.

The one with eight bidders, has the project started? Started.

Were there any difﬁculties in the project? Started but I wouldn’t say that it has totally started. The ﬁrst nine months we can’t do anything we need to deal with a lot of submissions. For example, to do this ceiling, we need a secondary support. All the materials have to be submitted as well. You will have a very lengthy process to get all the approvals done. So if there are any rejections you need to go through multiple re-submissions.

So what are the usual problems for architectural works? I am talking about construction work right. I would say the skillset of workers currently available is lacking. We rely a lot on general workers but they can only do so much of labor type of work. Not a lot of them can appreciate architectural ﬁnishing. To them a piece of panel is a panel. They just take it and mild it without ensuring the conditions of the panel corners. Some workers don’t show pride in their work so to them they just do what you say. They won’t really see whether they properly do it or what. It doesn’t matter to them. So workmanship is always a problem in the market. Ask any contractors, this is always a challenge. You can subcontract out you don’t know whether they can give you all the good workers for the project.

Hypothetically speaking, if your company bid at very low profit margins for the project, does this forces your company to reduce manpower or any cost saving measures? Yes, let’s say for one of our project (P.S. project name kept confidential to maintain confidentiality of Mr. C), we were the lowest. Because we have not got a job for a long time so we bid at very low price. We were actually two million away from the other guy. So for that situation normally what you will do is you see where you will cut cost. You will try to not come onboard to delay as long as possible so that you won’t start incurring cost. You will get your staff to multiple projects so you can minimize the cost. Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C 231

So overhead is one big cost saver? Yes I would say in a project it is one big component. It alone is easily 10%, excluding manpower costs. Can you imagine if you add in the workers cost it is going to be a very big ﬁgure so the rest will be subcontractors cost and everything.

For your project on station V in 2010 and the eight bidder project, were there any cash ﬂow issues? We will never see this kind of problems for LTA projects. LTA projects usually have very prompt payments.

For the project on Station V too? Yes. That is also a LTA project. We face more of a problem when they want us to speed up the work to meet their cash flow. Because every LTA project works on a cash flow. Based on your program. So if your program says you are going to reach this milestone means you are going to reach this milestone. Your payment is tied to this milestone, so if your schedule slips they will force you to come back to this so you can get payment according to the milestone. This is how the system works. Whereas for building projects, that’s where you face problems. Where private clients give reasons like you haven’t finish this so I won’t pay you first.

For Housing and Development Board (HDB) projects too? We don’t know because we don’t do HDB projects but for private projects we do encounter them, such as the one that we applied for CONQUAS.

Is it a norm for payment defaulting? I would not say defaulting. They just slow down the payment. Because to them cash flow is key. The slower they pay you, the better it is for them. So for us if we have slow cash flow we will do it down one tier so that we won’t end up in a negative cash flow.

Supply chain issues do you see it arising because of economic recession? I don’t think there will be a problem. Because the way our operation model is like is we don’t really subcontract the whole thing out to them. We procure the materials ourselves as we want to control the quality of material source. We only subcontract out to installers to do installation work. We don’t subcontract a supply install package as if we do so, we will end up with no control over the supply. So we rather control the supply upstream where we procure the materials and then subcontract out to install. However, some items we can’t, for example doors. We don’t produce so we supply and install and subcontract out to the door guys. 232 Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C

For operating expenditure, during a project let’s say if operating expenditure increases, does that cause your ﬁrm to reduce manpower or cut cost? Theoretically you cannot. Because your stations will continue to run, and you still need your same supervisors. Otherwise who will supervise and help you to delegate the work? MRT station is not so easy, building projects you can still do that. Because MRT station is a very wide area, you cannot cut down manpower like from two guys to one. That one guy cannot possibly go around the wide area to delegate works. Whereas for building, it is very conﬁned, so you can do it.

When prices of materials fluctuate due to economic recessions, what are the impacts on your firm? I have seen it many times. I would say the material prices fluctuates due to the market’s supply and demand. Back then I would say that the panels people wouldn’t do it if it is not 200 but now, even 100 plus they will do it. Because what are you going to do with the materials if you don’t sell? To them it is a chain reaction. Manufacturers also realize there are not enough projects, so they want to offload materials so that they can convert materials to cash. Everybody down the line will be willing to cut depending on how bad the market is. But again, market forces for the construction industry are very interesting. If you see the cyclical curve for Singapore construction, it is actually two quarters behind GDP. When the thing it is at its peak, we are not at the peak yet and when it is going down we will feel the peak. So we are always two quarters delayed. We will not really feel the impact of the bad news when it first comes in as there are still ongoing projects. We are very busy, but everybody is rushing us to finish the work. When the market trend is going downwards, that is when everyone tries to secure as many projects as possible, hoping that when the market falls and when we subcontract out, we can subcontract out at a better price. However, we secure at a highest best possible price last time. Now we see that the economic conditions are improving. But construction industry is still bad now we can’t feel it yet. We will only feel it next year when projects start to come alive. Those who try to rush in to secure projects are securing contracts at a low base now but now when the market picks up they will suffer.

So there are no contract clauses that protect subcontractors? Even main contractors are not protected, why do you think subcontractors are protected? The only contracts where provision is allowed is for government projects, they only give ﬂuctuations for your steel and concrete. They have a ﬂuctu- ation clause for them but that is tied to your index right.

Recently in a newspaper article, Minister Lawrence Wong says that firms cut corners when they bid at very low prices. Why do you think they cut? Labor, material and your profits are three major costs for construction. Labor is whether it is direct or indirect cost. Material is all your material supply, whether you or your subcontractor buy doesn’t matter. And lastly your margins, something has Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C 233 to go. If your material price is already locked. You can go around to get cheaper alternatives that’s where you cut corners. For example, I ask for 2mm thickness and you go and source around and say 1.8mm cannot? These are all cutting corners. Labor you can’t cut unless you cut your total manpower down. Next is your margin, you can only cut labor and cut this of course your profit margins are already low. You only have these two denominators to play on. So, you have to choose which is the lesser evil. For the total volume of work you have if you cut manpower you are going to face the issue of internal deliver. So you can only cut materials. So material is going to be the one that suffers the most. People will go around finding the cheapest possible material hoping they can get away with it. This is prevalent in the market especially for contractors that are doing a lot of non-public kind of work so whatever is hidden they will try to cut corners.

For your company, would you say you guys practice this as well? My company is one of the few contractors that is recognized by the LTA for our good work. Even when they lounge the station when they do the opening, it is done at the Z station where the ministers come down to bless the opening. During the announcement, four stations are identiﬁed for this press announcement and X station is one of them selected. We are quite pleased that LTA has recognized our workmanship. You can ask around. We are quite fairly treated by LTA in terms of what we deliver. They can recognize that we are one of the good quality players. In fact my company is the only one company where LTA called for three provisional sum contracts. We are the only one invited to all three stations’ tender and we won two.

So what do you think are the characteristics of your company compared to the other subcontractors cutting corners? I would rather not bid for the project if I knew that I will have to cut corners, which we did it before. There is no reason for us to cut and then die when we realize we cannot do it, so what’s the point. So for some tenders say for 40 tenderers your chance is only 2.5%. I might as well save my team effort and time to do something more effective then to spend it on this 2.5% chance. I rather bet on the tender that have 25 or at least 15% decent chance over the 2.5% chance.

Are there any strategies? That is one of them. The other strategy is if you do a good work people will actually recommend you to other people especially for architectural. Similarly for MRT we don’t need to go around marketing ourselves. People will come to find us. The question is whether you have the resource to tender for it. So sometimes you may have to reject them if you don’t have enough resources. Anyway, if it is a first-time client, why bother trying to find a new one? We might as well stick to our old client, we know them they know you. 234 Appendix I: Case Study Interview with Mr. C

Government pump-priming and its impacts. It helps to an extent but is not strong enough to remove the impacts of economic recessions. Do you agree? Look at the peak of the construction demand. Back then we hit 30 odd billion, now we are nowhere near. I would say the private sector really died. There is no real launch of commercial or residential projects for the last so many months I can remember. So who is going to top up this shortfall? Government doing 1.4 billion out of the 10 billion that is wiped out? So the help is almost non-existent. On the surface 1.4 billion may seem huge but in reality it is translated into very small scale contracts to benefit those very small operation companies maybe those with 20/30 staffs for them to sustain. Because the construction industry is like a value chain. The smallest company will support the next tire and then support the next tier which goes on and on until the top tier which is the big Multi National Corporations and main contractors. So you can see how the current system you have to fit so many people, so how can 1.4 billion fit such a big group?

Thank you Mr. C. Appendix J Expert Interview with Mr. D

Mr. D Date of interview: 19 January 2018 Time of interview: 2pm to 3pm BCA CRS grading of current company: A1 Contractor Position in the company: Senior Manager Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

Factors F_1 to F_5 are impacts of economic recessions on the bidding phases of projects. In response to F_1 to F_5, contractors/subcontractors respond by bidding at (excessively) low prices in order to win projects. Do you agree with the relationship thus far from ER to BID_PRICE? As you cross the left hand side, this is the old immigration. If you remember, the left hand side along the creek there’s a building. That was 1997 before the recession hits. There was no construction. So the recession stopped construction. Secondly on quality as you said. Now, recession of 1997 onwards what happen after that? What did people do? First thing non-essential things were cut off. In a recession, let’s not talk about quality. You start to throw a few things. So one of the things is the environmental projects; they went off the radar. Construction demand yes. We have two kinds of construction one is the government sponsored and the private ones. The private demand falls drastically. And after the recession, the government pumped prime to make it up.

Do you feel that in a recession companies feel pressured to get work and get new work? No not really. They would rather preserve what they can earn than to work more. When you bid for a job, number one is to make money and number two to sustain their staff; that means you are just making enough to make ends meet. So maybe

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 235 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 236 Appendix J: Expert Interview with Mr. D when the cloud clears you can use the same staff. So they tend to be more conservative.

In times of recession, when contractors bid for projects, do they make more aggressive assumptions? No because the risks are high they will be more conservative. It’s like gambling.

Would Singapore contractor ﬁrms respond to recessions by bidding more aggressively? That’s why all the companies that were considered the big players in 1997 don’t exist now. I can give you the names. They bid aggressively and didn’t sustain.

Do you feel that competition in bidding rises in Singapore due to recession? Yes it is very competitive. I give you one example. In 2010, ﬁrst 3 bidders were within 2%; very close. People get very conscious of the price.

When contractors/subcontractors bid low to win projects, they try and recover the losses or profits during construction. Do you agree or disagree? Yes. Either you make money or you try to sustain yourself. Keeping staff in your office functioning is far more honorable than having your office close.

As a result of trying to recover the losses or proﬁts during construction, quality is compromised (i.e. there is a quality tradeoff). Do you agree or disagree? Agree.

F_6 to F_13 are impacts of economic recessions on the construction phases of projects. These impacts result in an increase in the costs of producing quality output. This results in contractors/subcontractor resorting to quality tradeoffs. Do you agree or disagree? Changes in scope of work, yes people cut out non-essentials. They make something to generate revenue then they add on something else. Property prices, yes they fell drastically. Let’s take one step further I think in 1999 and 2003, these were the 2 lowest points for Housing and Development Board (HDB) housing prices; so prices Appendix J: Expert Interview with Mr. D 237 do fall drastically. There is some uncertainty for the staffs whether they will retain or not so that translates to productivity. The ﬂuctuations are quite high for productivity. Is there a higher risk of failure in the supply chain? Yes, very high. If the main contractor is hit by recession so will the small contractors. So the problem of insolvency is very high for smaller contractors. At times, they are unable to deliver and some go bankrupt. Overhead costs no; everything goes down at that time. And clients defaulting on payment, yes this used to be the case in times of recession. This is where the law came in around 2005 where every subcontractor has to be paid within 60 days. So that prevented this fall. In 1997 during recession the interest rate went up affecting a lot of things. The world bank realised it is the wrong thing to be done. Subsequently, they kept interest rates low in 2007 and 2008. And now they are planning to go higher as recession is over. So there is a change in philosophy.

Do you agree that prices of materials, manpower and machinery would fall in times of recession? In times of recession they fall.

Okay having talked about this, ﬁrms try to bid for projects during a recession because the prices of materials haven’t dropped at that time. So they can win the project at a certain high cost. And then when the recession takes effect, prices of materials per se would fall and they thus make a proﬁt out of it. Do you agree that this is happening in the market? This is like a stock market prediction. It works both ways.

Yes, this is one strategy but many say ﬁrms are unable to properly predict when the recession is going to hit. No one can predict. In my company we got a big job in 1997. We started executing it in 1998. Material prices fell so they could make money. That was a MRT project. They got another MRT project in 2001. They started executing it in 2003. At this time, there is the biggest change in Singapore. The steel prices increased by more than two times. Almost every contractor lost minimum 40 to 50 million for large scale MRT projects. They went up to clients for an increase in price but clients refused. And because of the pressure, one change happened. Now in government projects, there is a price escalation clause after the problem of 2003.

The ﬁndings suggest that in the presence of Fc_1 to Fc_7 and Fs_1 to Fs_13, the extent of quality tradeoff by contractors/subcontractors will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? Yes, I agree with them; because just to maintain the reputation, they will go ahead. Name is very important. Once the name is tarnished you can never get back again. They move people from left, right to centre to get things done. I’ve seen outside companies from Singapore do it. Government in Singapore has encouraged companies to venture out due to the recession. But it is not so easy because if there is recession in Singapore, generally there will be recession in ASEAN. So you can’t venture out as they will be protective of their companies.

These twelve initiatives coupled with consistent government pump-priming over the years are major schemes that the Singapore government has adopted in light of its commitment to develop a high quality built environment. The ﬁndings suggest that in light of these efforts, the extent of quality tradeoff by contractors/subcontractors will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? Yes, it helps. The penalty for poor quality is higher now.

On the effects of government pump-priming, the major ﬁnding is that it beneﬁts only a small segment of the industry. Absolutely right; take for example in 2008 in Singapore. Companies and contractors not happy. Small timers suffer more than big timers. The reason being competition is very high. Not only that, protective and internationalized rules created competition and pushed people out. From 2009 onwards the local contractors made a complaint to the government that they are not having jobs and that they should be allowed to bid for MRT projects. They did try but lost the jobs. So the local suffered. There are not a lot of locals working for the government jobs.

[Additional question] So what do you think of the new price quality ratio for the Price Quality Method (PQM)? Actually now the emphasis is more on safety than quality. Quality becomes second. Quality yes you try and maintain but they have to put in more money.

Thank you Mr. D. Appendix K Expert Interview with Mr. E

Mr. E Date of interview: 05 February 2018 Time of interview: 5.30pm to 6.30pm BCA CRS grading of current company: A1 Contractor Position in the company: Executive Director Years of experience in the construction industry: >10 years

Basically my research supervisor, Professor Low Sui Pheng and I came across newspaper clippings from The Straits Times that discussed how quality is an issue particularly in bad times; where ﬁrms (further) compromises on quality. This led to me and my supervisors thinking about the relationship between economic recessions and construction quality. Okay I have a different view but okay you just share with me yours ﬁrst.

Do you agree that with these (ﬁve) impacts bid price will fall? You missed out one; ego. In Singapore it is particular so. It’s a culture thing (laughs). Yes it is possible but not necessarily so because it’s affected by many other elements. Construction demand is categorized by what kind of demand you are talking about; civil or structural and what kind of areas you are trying to push toward. Now, take for example the en bloc going on. You can expect better quality in ﬁnishes to attract buyers because now they have a four years return on

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 239 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 240 Appendix K: Expert Interview with Mr. E investment. Aggressive bid assumptions is natural; be it good or bad times. Number of bidders, true; it’s more of who than the numbers.

As a result of bidding at excessively low prices to win projects, quality is compromised (i.e. there is a quality tradeoff) down the line. Do you agree or disagree? Yes of course the quality is one thing that will be compromised.

The ﬁndings suggest that when contractors/subcontractors bid at excessively low prices, they may not compromise on quality but indirectly cause a fall in overall quality of the project when they pass down the costs to subcontractors by subcontracting works to them at very low prices. This results in subcontractors compromising on quality as a result. (1) Is this a common phenomenon in practice and (2) do you agree with this relationship? Yes, it is the same. Economic recession is only the front part. It is too vague. But if you look at the behaviors, down to the subcontractor, it gives you a better understanding of what is going on. It is never the contractors who want to reduce quality. Everybody wants to go forward. The only reason why we go backwards is because we have no choice. Some developers still want to maintain their margins, it will pass down to the contractors and so on. So someone has to give and this will cascade out. It’s always from the bottom to the top because you can simply pass on the responsibility. This is the problem with the industry now. If the developer is willing to pay high, do you think the contractor don’t want to do it for you? Will I risk the risk delivering a lousy product when this is a good pay master? So it is never the contractor’s choice to do so. So if price pressure comes from the top, it’s always the last guy that suffers. You underbid, that’s where you lose quality.

Because the survey ﬁndings suggest that these impacts are not felt by ﬁrms. No, they will be felt by companies.

The findings suggest that the fall in prices of materials, manpower and machinery during recessionary times is a double edged sword. Firstly, one can profit from a recession if they can accurately predict the timing in the fall of materials, manpower and machinery prices. By doing so, contractors/subcontractors will attempt to bid for projects before a recession hits and when a recession eventually comes and prices fall, they will make a profit. In such case, no (further) quality tradeoff (QTO) arising from a Appendix K: Expert Interview with Mr. E 241 recession will be observed. However, the findings suggest that most contractors/subcontractors cannot accurately predict the prices and as a result, incur cost they are unable to stomach. This results in eventual quality tradeoffs. Do you agree with this phenomenon? All these are natural impacts of economic recessions. I mean these are strategies. You can literally know what is coming. The government puts up so many figures. Everybody knows the data, and everybody will be using the same data, and will be doing the same thing. We are that good. You go to Myanmar they give you rubbish numbers.

The ﬁndings suggest that in the presence of Fc_1 to Fc_7, the extent of quality tradeoff by the contractor/subcontractor will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? Technical personnel, Fc_6 is not necessary. Fc_1, Fc_2 and Fc_7 are possible. The minimum standard that government imposed for technical personnel in a ﬁrm is good enough for the clients already.

The findings suggest that in the presence of Fs_1 to Fs_13, the extent of quality tradeoff by the contractors/subcontractors will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? Diversification and entry in new markets, how does that help in quality? No. Niche area is possible. I mean niche is not much out there; some specialists you cannot replace. Yea Fs_4 and Fs_5 definitely help. Fs_7 in the field is very rare. I think naturally almost all the companies are very lean already. Fs_13 is possible. Re-negotiating loan contracts with the bank? How does it help? The current facilities provided to the businesses are good enough for them to function. At this loan interest rate, if they still don’t function well then there is something very wrong.

ﬁndings suggest that in light of these efforts, the extent of quality tradeoff by contractors/subcontractors will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? No even they themselves say that the quality didn’t go up. So ask yourself who pay, the person who pay is the most powerful person. In the middle, there is authority coming here and there. If the guy who pays doesn’t move his butt, the ones at the middle can do nothing, for show only. If the guy that pays really does his work, you won’t need authorities anymore. If you are paid good enough money, you will do a fantastic job. Don’t talk about individual don’t talk about framework. Let’s talk about surviving in business. Let’s be practical. You need to earn money and it is the guy who is the paymaster that controls that.

Thank you Mr. E. Appendix L Expert Interview with Mr. F

Mr. F Date of interview: 06 February 2018 Time of interview: 4.30pm to 5.15pm BCA CRS grading of current company: Not applicable (consultant company) Position in the company: Partner Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

Factors F_1 to F_5 are impacts of economic recessions on the bidding phases of projects. In response to F_1 to F_5 in times of recession, contractors/subcontractors respond by bidding at (excessively) low prices in order to win projects. Do you agree with the relationship thus far from ER to BID_PRICE? I think the firms would have done their sums. I don’t think it will be an obvious thing for them to compromise their quality. They must have had some advantage to secure cheaper labor or materials. I don’t think there will be a deliberate attempt to compromise on quality. You just have to get good supervisors to get construction properly done that’s all. In recession, the margins may not be profit but they just keep going. The margin may be negative say negative five just to keep alive.

When contractors/subcontractors bid low to win projects, they try and recover the losses or proﬁts during construction. Do you agree or disagree? Not really.

As a result of trying to recover the losses or proﬁts during construction, quality is compromised (i.e. there is a quality tradeoff). Do you agree or disagree? What is your deﬁnition of quality? [Reply: Quality in this case is measured by CONQUAS; measured by the number of defects]. Yes CONQUAS is a tool in terms of indentifying the quality of a project. But when we talk about quality what

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 243 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 244 Appendix L: Expert Interview with Mr. F you meant is the construction; both the material and workmanship quality right. Again in these sorts of things, exactly how it is deﬁned is quite subjective. CONQUAS is only one type of way to see quality as and it is skewed towards residential work. So I am just saying that these factors (pointing to all the factors from F_1 to F_16) will obviously affect the workmanship, it may. But it is not a given thing. Even during economic recessions, those contracting ﬁrms with good reputation, they may cut their margins. But as far as I can tell, there isn’t many. So I am saying that there may be some relationship but not as direct as you think.

F_6 to F_13 are impacts of economic recessions on the construction phases of projects. These impacts results in an increase in the costs of producing quality output. This results in contractors/subcontractors resorting to quality tradeoffs. Do you agree or disagree? Why would property prices fall? [Reply: They are saying that in a recession people demand less for houses. Okay. Why did you put down overhead costs will rise? Not necessarily so, and defaults in payment, okay it’s possible. Lending rates depend on the economy. It really depends whether the lending rates will increase; especially when the risks are higher. It’s more of monetary policy; not so much controlled by the private sector.

The findings suggest that the fall in prices of materials, manpower and machinery during recessionary times is a double edged sword. Firstly, one can profit from a recession if they can accurately predict the timing in the fall of materials, manpower and machinery prices. By doing so, contractors/subcontractors will attempt to bid for projects before a recession hits and when a recession eventually comes and prices fall, they will make a profit. In such case, no (further) quality tradeoff (QTO) arising from a recession will be observed. However, the findings suggest that most contractors/subcontractors cannot accurately predict the prices and as a result, incur cost they are unable to stomach. This results in eventual quality tradeoffs. Do you agree with this phenomenon? No comment. Appendix L: Expert Interview with Mr. F 245

A case study mentioned that the prices of materials rise in the midst of their project and they had to absorb the costs. Yes it depends on what contract form you have; whether there are any material ﬂuctuation clauses. If don’t have then too bad. Very few will have material ﬂuc- tuations. Only government projects have.

Findings further suggest that when prices of materials, manpower and machinery fall, subcontractors/suppliers who secured a contract at a low price during recessions may allocate resources elsewhere when the economy recovers and these results in potential delay of the current project. Do you agree with this phenomenon? It’s possible. Of course they would want to shift some of their resources and manpower to a new project when they are at the end of the current project. Because they would know their costs already and if they have an overspent situation, they tend to mitigate the cost and cut the cost over-run and hence, push the laborers to the site that requires them at the earlier phases of the job; where the cash flow is much better. At the end of the job, it’s always very hard to receive payments because you know the S curve. The payments are much reduced until you get certain certificates. One is the certificate of completion; you get 2.5% of the sum released. And beyond that, post completion, you have maintenance and defects liability period for about twelve to fifteen months. So it is very hard to get sub- sequent money because it’s the balance of stuff like varying show work.

The ﬁndings suggest that in the presence of Fc_1 to Fc_7, the extent of quality tradeoff by contractors/subcontractors will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? Yes I think it will be true.

The findings suggest that in the presence of FS1 to FS13, the extent of quality tradeoff by the contractor/subcontractor will be reduced. Do you agree with (1) the factors and (2) this phenomenon? To enter the new market, okay. Niche areas, okay. Establishing strong client relationships, okay. What is emphasizing on marketing strategies? [Reply: helping the construction firm to have a better position in the industry like market positioning in terms of quality or sustainability]. So it’s a marketing thing. Document lessons from past recessions. That’s possible because you have older people with experience that weathered it before they can probably help with their knowledge. Negotiate for special loan services. Yes, I mean that is the side you will have to get more financing facilities because the cash flow will be very slow. 246 Appendix L: Expert Interview with Mr. F

So these strategies would help to moderate the quality trade-off? Quality? Why you compare to quality. I thought these are to help ﬁrms survive recessionary times?

Because the proposed relationship suggests that these firm strategies would moderate the impacts of economic recessions on firms. So indirectly it will reduce the extent of quality tradeoff; if the preceding relationships hold true. I think if you look at the impact analysis, the correlation will not be as good as you think. When a company shrinks in size it doesn’t mean the quality will gone done. Obviously the firms will do less work but they still do quality work. So you can still maintain quality. It really depends on what kind of management and culture the firm has. It’s important to commit to quality.

In the newspaper articles we saw earlier, it seems to suggest that governmental efforts have been insufficient to encourage firms to uphold quality despite bad times. What are your opinions on this? Like I said I don’t think there’s a very strong correlation. I mean obviously they are having financial difficulties; the work will not get done properly with fewer staff. But in the normal sense, I think it’s hard to get a direct correlation. You can still have good workmanship in a recession but those are good companies.

Thank you Mr. F. Appendix M Expert Interview with Mr. G

Mr. G Date of interview: 15 November 2017 Time of interview: 3pm to 3.45pm BCA CRS grading of current company: Not applicable (government agency) Position in the company: Deputy Director Years of experience in the construction industry: >20 years

Factors F_1 to F_5 are impacts of economic recessions on the bidding phases of projects. Do you agree with these impacts of economic recessions on contractor firms? For us (government officials) we don’t know. We don’t manage projects. Have you approached any firms or any quantity surveyors (QS)? If you are looking for some statistic and all, perhaps the contractors or QS firms can give you some insights. The Professor may have some contacts on QS firms. Because QS firm consults on project, they can give insights.

What is your general view on the Construction quality performance in Singapore over the past ten years? The performance has improved vastly. If you use the CONQUAS score (which you can get from IQUAS), looking at the industry average, it has signiﬁcantly improved.

Do you have reasons for the improvements on the Construction quality? In Singapore we don’t regulate quality. We regulate safety and green requirements. We also have requirements on productivity. We must meet certain constructability scores. Nothing about quality; where quality is still voluntary. BCA actually pro- motes quality based on the CONQUAS and Quality Mark schemes. Quality Mark is meant for residential housing. However, public housing we do not use it now. So,

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 247 L. Sui Pheng and L. Shing Hou, Construction Quality and the Economy, Management in the Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5847-0 248 Appendix M: Expert Interview with Mr. G only the private housing projects use Quality Mark. I think the main reason the industry has improved is because we actively promote CONQUAS. CONQUAS is actually a requirement now for all government land sale projects. For all government projects, CONQUAS is a tender requirement. That means to say a plot of government land if you are successful they will have to subscribe. For all public sector jobs and building projects are required under the instruction manual to do CONQUAS. This pushed the construction industry to make a minimum standard as far as quality is concerned. However, CONQUAS doesn’t set a minimum score. For public sector building projects there are some bonus and discount scores stated in the project. If the project scores over the minimum bonus threshold score, anything above the score there is a certain formula that is used to tabulate and to incentivize contractors. Conversely, if they don’t perform, they can be penalized up to two million dollars by the same formula; 3% or two million, whichever is lower.

What do you think are the impacts of economic recessions on the construction industry as a whole? If there are lesser projects to go around and the number of contracting firms remains constant, there will be more hungry firms. You will expect that those bigger firms that normally don’t bid for smaller jobs will now compete and bid with those smaller firms. Smaller firms does not have as much resources and capabilities. One impact is that quality will be compromised. They will be able to get the tenderers to lower the bid to try to match another contractor’s bid but by doing so something else will have to go.

Will the number of bidders increase generally for each project? Yes.

Competition in bidding for the projects will also increase? Yes.

Would a fall in profit margins be reflected in the bidders’ bid price during recessionary times? Of course, if firms are hungry I don’t think they are going for high profit margins. They just want a job to roll over to keep their manpower and resources. So this is a strategy where the firms maintain certain manpower such that when the economy improves, they can take on the jobs. So profit margin may be the least in mind.

Based on your experiences, do you see a tradeoff in quality as a result of contractors bidding at excessively low prices to win projects? If all being equal, let’s say you got a job because you dive on the price, then probably somewhere will be compromised. It could be the materials or the quality of work. Unless you have some technology that no one knows of but it wouldn’t Appendix M: Expert Interview with Mr. G 249 come cheap. If you are using the same technology, then cost would be the same. If you use the same resources, where else can you cut? First thing is quality will suffer. You can cut on manpower but less people will supervise the work. So at the end of the day something will be compromised. It could be safety or quality.

Some construction ﬁrms produce high quality results even during recessionary times. What are some of the factors that results in that? This will boil down to the top management of the company because the top management will dictate whether they will perform or not. So it all boils down to the culture.

We move on to governmental efforts. The Singapore government has been consistently pump-priming the public sectors due to assist ﬁrms in tiding bad times. From your experience, how effective are these government initiatives? Like I said quality is not regulated. So good or bad times depending on whether your job is built on land sale or public sector building projects, anything that is ﬁve million and above you are subjected to CONQUAS. As long as quality is concerned it doesn’t change. Of course during economic recessions you see more tenderers. As long as government is concerned, we use the Price Quality Method (PQM). So you not only look at price but quality achievers. There’s a scoring method in PQM where government is supposed to reward the bidder with the highest score. After you take away the quality part, if contractor dive at a very low price, there is a possibility that they will get the job. Unless you have a valid reason to say that this contractor cannot deliver, you will have to give it to the contractor.

Do you have any insights on what the government is trying to achieve when they carry out pump-priming per se. They are trying to make up for the shortfall. The way I look at it, construction contributes about 5% to GDP. So it makes sense for the government to pump in more projects to make up for the short fall. They also have to keep it in a healthy state. So they try to help to certain extents. But I think a lot of these public sector projects come in the form infrastructure and MRT jobs which may not beneﬁt a lot of local contractors. Because not all contractors have the ability to do these type of jobs.

When I looked at the CONQUAS scores for Samsung Construction and Technology, their CONQUAS score for these ﬁve projects have an average of 85.23. I notice that architectural scored very lowly during the recessionary period in 2001 and 2002. In fact for most of the companies, they have low architectural scores during recessionary periods. This one is what type of project? Any industrial buildings? [Reply: these are residential and commercial projects]. We will also have to look at the project. Generally industrial buildings will score lower because the focus is not a lot on 250 Appendix M: Expert Interview with Mr. G

ﬁnishing but more on workmanship quality. But it will be true for residential and commercial. So when you look at the score you must look at the project as well. But for those strong companies of course they may still do well even if the project is industrial. You can try getting the contractor ﬁrms; there will be able to help you in more detail.

Thank you Mr. G. References

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