Application of Life Cycle Analysis in the Capital Assets Industry Published by CMAA

I am pleased to announce the completion of my fourth book entitled “Application of Life Cycle Analysis in the Capital Assets Industry” published by the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA).

In the book I define Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) as the assessment of the total cost or benefit of an asset over its lifetime.

Also referred to as Whole Life Costing (WLC) or Life Cycle Value Analysis (LCVA). LCA systematically considers all relevant costs and revenues associated with the acquisition, ownership and disposal of an asset. It considers associated risks and uncertainties. Importantly, LCA supports a comprehensive assessment of sustainability by considering all benefits and impacts within a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Framework.

LCA brings a broadened perspective to traditional life cycle costing methodologies in several important ways:

Revenue and its timing are incorporated.

Risk and uncertainty are specifically addressed in modeling and subsequent optimization.

Benefits, uncertainties and impacts are considered not only from an economic bottom line perspective but similarly from an environmental and social bottom line perspective.

The developed analysis framework provides a basis for periodic reconfirmation of adopted strategies or reconfiguration guidance if changed future states so dictate.

It is intended not just as an up-front option assessment or validation tool but a dynamic life cycle based management tool essential in managing today’s capital asset portfolios.

The intent of this book is several-fold:

First, to broaden the perspectives of program managers who increasingly are being tasked to consider more than initial delivery of a program. Rather, they are increasingly focused on helping the facility’s owner meet broader and deeper strategic business objectives, and as such factors such as availability, operability and maintainability are increasingly important.

Second, to provide insights to individual project managers as they consider project life cycle costs to ensure false tradeoffs are not made, thus impacting reliable facility operation. In addition, many projects are beginning to consider life cycle aspects other than cost and thus the TBL focus embedded in this book.

Finally, this book is focused on facility owners and attempts to provide an initial roadmap with a TBL focus to help them plan and make the right kinds of cost vs. value tradeoffs as they implement their capital asset programs.

The book is available as an e-book from the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) and may be found at:

http://cmaanet.org/bookstore-highlights

Any author’s royalties are donated to an engineering scholarship fund.