Whole life performance and costs to benefit the client

A whole life costing approach is recognised as a means to improved value for money. It can inform decision making on a number of management and maintenance issues:

• setting sinking fund provision;
• setting service charges;
• informing rent levels;
• providing a tool for managing planned maintenance;
• assessing alternative component replacement options;
• providing a decision-making tool for comparing alternative maintenance strategies;
• defining minimum levels of performance for components and so informing future replacement and improvement strategies and procurement; and
• establishing which assets are not viable to retain as part of the stock.

Information for whole life costing

The information needed to carry out whole life costing includes:

• component information, specifically relating to properties which influence durability and performance. This leads to ...
• establishment of component service lives. This information can be based on experience of the performance of components in situ or based on the several component life manuals and service life data that have been published. See Further information for sources of component life data. Such information includes:
  • measure of the quantity of components;
  • replacement costs for components;
  • maintenance regimes and costs;

  and, if included in the whole life cost assessments,

  • energy, utility, cleaning and security costs; and
  • income from the assets.