LifeCycle
LifeCycle provides a framework for you to take account of different costs, including capital costs, running costs, annual maintenance and replacement costs. LifeCycle calculates the Net Present Value (NPV) for the particular option, based on inflation rates and the anticipated life of the building. You can then compare different design strategies in terms of NPV.
LifeCycle has five cost categories into which you can enter data, depending on the information you have available:
- Capital cost. This can be entered manually or can be a calculated based on the model and a CostPlan cost data file.
- Electricity and fuel costs. These can be entered along with the billing period to which the costs relate. They can be based on actual bills, or calculated using another method, such as the Deft software.
- Annual maintenance. This can be entered as a single annual figure, or broken down into as much detail as necessary.
- Repair costs. These include the year of repair or replacement − enabling you to define items of plant, when they will be replaced and how much they will cost. An extensive list of building services and typical economic life facilitates this strategically important cost element.
- Costing for intermittent periods. For example, in a PFI project of 25 years, the anticipated life of the building may be 50 years. This option lets you take account of the costs for years 26 to 50.
Keywords
life-cycle cost, economics
Validation/Testing
N/A
Expertise Required
-
Users
Many throughout UK, Europe, Australia, and USA.
Audience
Mechanical building services engineers, facilities managers, quantity surveyors, building owners
Input
Input of building shape and form is through a CAD geometrical representation of the building in the IDM. Building constructions, building usage patterns, worldwide climatic weather data, building HVAC systems and lifecycle costing data can all be input via pre-built databases or created by the user through an intuitive graphical user interface.
Output
Output of the life-cycle cost calculations are shown in tabular and graphical form within a self contained results viewer. Results can be given in a range of versatile formats, including a detailed breakdown of Net Present Value, a graph of LC Cost Categories, and a breakdown of annual costs for each LC Cost Category for each year of the building life. All reportage can be copied into word processing and spreadsheet packages for further analysis/reporting.
Computer Platform
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz+, or AMD Athlon 1400+ CPU. Faster processors strongly recommended for frequent use of detailed simulation modules such as Radiance and APACHE-sim.
Memory: 512 Mb fast RAM (266Mhz+)
Hard Drive: 500 Mb free for installation, 1Gb free for Project data. Annual thermal simulation results for large models can produce large data files e.g. larger than 50 MB.
Optical Drive: CDRW, enabling large projects to be securely backed up.
Video Card: OpenGL compatible video card with 128 Mb RAM. Suggest GEForce or Radeon based cards.
Operating System: Windows 2000, Windows XP.
Minimum screen resolution - 1024 x 768 pixels.
Programming Language
C++, Visual Basic, Fortran
Strengths
The lifecycle costing information is a product of the design and simulation calculations within the IES
Weaknesses
-
Contact
Company: |
IES Ltd |
Address: |
Helix Building, Kelvin Campus |
Telephone: |
+44 (141) 945 8500 |
Facsimile: |
+44 (141) 945 8500 |
E-mail: |
|
Website: |
Availability
Contact IES at the above address or visit the web site.