technical case study
procurement, fabrication and construction, through use and maintenance, to end-of-life. In so doing, it provides a more robust insight into long-term costs and savings, compared to ROI-based calculations. The full cost of a project would include projections for items such as: • future rates of interest and inflation • designed or expected maintenance intervals and costs (both material and labour) • desired service life
benchmark. LCC uses the standard accounting principle of discounted cash flow. Costs of maintenance and associated downtime can outweigh the initial material costs. From a sustainability viewpoint it makes sense to calculate a full life cycle cost assessment. LCC is the sum of acquisition cost, initial fabrication and installation costs, operational and maintenance costs, lost production due to down time, as well as replacement costs. However, at the end of the project life, all material involved and still available can be retrieved for re-use or recycling. The value of this can therefore be subtracted from the total cost.
When assessing materials costs consideration should be given to long- and short-term factors such as:
• initial investment • maintenance level and frequency • downtime effects • production losses, repair, replacement • other operationally related costs such as manpower and energy consumption The way that the calculation of the total LCC is formulated allows for all associated future costs to be calculated and expressed in present monetary values as a comparative
When using stainless steel, the end of life value becomes very important. In architectural installations it is estimated that around 92% of the original material will be available for recycling. In the case of coated carbon steel or galvanised installations, this figure is closer to values between 62% and 68%. Therefore, our industry can proudly say that more than 75% of all new stainless steel material comes from recycled sources.
Sassda’s LCC Toolbox:
Case Study 1: The Residential Fence A middle income family needs to install a security fence with the following options: 1. A carbon steel construction to be powder coated 2. A 3CR12 construction to be powder coated 3. A 3CR12 construction with no coating and allowed to age naturally.
Some research into the detailed costing provided the following information.
The Sassda application yields the results shown on the right with the highlights being that the uncoated 3CR12 version will be 68% lower in cost over the 15 years life span. Even if the 3CR12 is powder coated it would still be 30% less expensive than the coated carbon steel version.
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Issue 2 – 2023
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