The durability of buildings which depends on the nature of the supervisory system used in their construction is an important feature of the construction industry. This article tries to draw the readers' attention to the effect of untrained and unprofessional building supervisors and their unethical performance on the durability of buildings.
Matched MeSH terms: Construction Industry/education
The recent growth of biotechnology requires a wide range of expertise within the industry. Education is the primary platform for students to gain information and knowledge on biotechnology. In Malaysia where biotechnology is relatively new, education programs and courses must be tailored to meet the demands of the industry. A combination of theoretical knowledge as well as practical and industrial training is essential to ensure graduates are prepared for their career in the fields of biotechnology. Results from this study show that university students lack literacy on biotechnology information and access to facilities provided by the universities. This may be a significant contributing factor to the lack of knowledge and information amongst graduates. Furthermore comparative analysis on the biotechnology program in Malaysian universities with that of other countries show the need to restructure the program by offering more specialized courses as well as soft skills and business subjects. This is to meet the demands of the related professionals as well as the various branches that exist in the biotechnology industry.
Traditional robotic work cell design and programming are considered inefficient and outdated in current industrial and market demands. In this research, virtual reality (VR) technology is used to improve human-robot interface, whereby complicated commands or programming knowledge is not required. The proposed solution, known as VR-based Programming of a Robotic Work Cell (VR-Rocell), consists of two sub-programmes, which are VR-Robotic Work Cell Layout (VR-RoWL) and VR-based Robot Teaching System (VR-RoT). VR-RoWL is developed to assign the layout design for an industrial robotic work cell, whereby VR-RoT is developed to overcome safety issues and lack of trained personnel in robot programming. Simple and user-friendly interfaces are designed for inexperienced users to generate robot commands without damaging the robot or interrupting the production line. The user is able to attempt numerous times to attain an optimum solution. A case study is conducted in the Robotics Laboratory to assemble an electronics casing and it is found that the output models are compatible with commercial software without loss of information. Furthermore, the generated KUKA commands are workable when loaded into a commercial simulator. The operation of the actual robotic work cell shows that the errors may be due to the dynamics of the KUKA robot rather than the accuracy of the generated programme. Therefore, it is concluded that the virtual reality based solution approach can be implemented in an industrial robotic work cell.