The role of life cycle cost in engineering asset management

Abstract

This paper presents a case study demonstrating life cycle cost (LCC) analysis as a major and critical activity of engineering asset management decisions and control. The objective is to develop a maintenance policy to control the economics of replacement and repair practice of refractory lining of an electric arc furnace (EAF). The replacement and repair policies involve the optimum life policy, the repair versus replacement policies, the repair limit method and the comparison of lining material types from different suppliers. The developed models provide a method for defining the most important factors involved in decision making with respect to operational and managerial levels. The approach also involves deciding the remaining age value as the repair limit criteria while avoid lining failure due to unavoidable deterioration caused by variation in operation conditions. The decision criteria are established as: (a) what type of lining material is better to use? (b) When to replace lining in a cyclic manner? (c) At what sequence is hot repair required and (d) whether to replace or use cold repair between replacements. Finally, the model output values for the decision criteria are presented in tables and graphs to guide decision making in operation and maintenance.