GELANG PATAH: FOREST City Industrialised Building System (IBS) Plant was recently honoured by the Malaysia Book of Records (MBR) for being the largest fully automated IBS factory in the country.
With a total investment of RM 2.6bil, the IBS plant features technologies from Germany, Italy and China was launched in August 2017 in Gelang Patah, Johor.
This initiative is in line with the government’s call for more adoption of IBS technology in the private sector.
CGPV Industrial Building Systems (CIBS) Sdn Bhd executive general manager Jerry Wang received the recognition from MBR adjudicator Edwin Yeoh.
The 18-acre plant comprises eight production lines, a concrete batching plant and storage yard.
Coupled with the in-house Building Information Technology (BIM) design, the plant has the capability of churning out 13 types of building components with a planned capacity to produce 260,000 cubic metres of materials.
The output capacity is enough to cover one million square metres of built area which is equivalent to 9,000 apartment units per annum.
The IBS construction method hopes to change the 3D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) image of the construction industry but such new technology will need economics of scale to achieve cost savings as the initial capital expenditure is a big hurdle for most construction companies in Malaysia.
The Country Garden Malaysia and Forest City strategy director Ng Zhu Hann said that they are aware of the government’s call for more affordable housing to be built across Malaysia through the National Housing Policy 2.0.
“As a contribution to this National Housing Policy 2.0, we are always ready to supply and instal IBS components for both the government and the private developers’ affordable housing projects,” he said at the event where Works Minister Baru Bian was the guest-of -honour.
Also present was the CGPV executive general manager Hugo Wu, Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) chief executive Datuk Ahmad ‘Asri Abdul Hamid and Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) chief executive officer Datuk Ismail Ibrahim.
Ismail said that CGPV chose to set up a plant in Gelang Patah instead of Klang Valley due to its strategic location.
“CGPV finds Gelang Patah to be the most strategic location in attracting those Malaysian talents who are working in the Singapore construction industry to come back and share their experience and knowledge with the local staff.
“As a result, the plant’s workforce currently has more than 80% of Malaysians,” he said.
Meanwhile, Baru said he was impressed with the IBS operations.
“After seeing the factory and the technology, I believe that this is a very good idea and our ministry would definitely support the efforts made by Forest City.
“This is the way forward for the construction industry,” he added.