The need for a more authoritative approach to investment decision-making and cost control has been a requirement of office spending for many years now. The commercial offices find itself in an increasingly demanding position to allocate its budgets as wisely and prudently as possible. The significant percentage of total spending on buildings demands a more accurate and adaptable method of achieving quality of service within the constraints on the budgets. By adoption of life cycle costing techniques with risk management, practitioners have the ability to make accurate forecasts of likely future running costs. This thesis presents a novel framework (Artificial Neural Networks and probabilistic simulations) for modelling of operating and maintenance historical costs as well as economic performance measures of LCC. The methodology consisted of eight steps and presented a novel approach to modelling the LCC of operating and maintenance costs of two sustainable commercial office buildings. Finally, a set of performance measurement indicators were utilised to draw inference from these results. Therefore, the contribution that this research aimed to achieve was to develop a dynamic LCC framework for sustainable commercial office buildings, and by means of two existing buildings, demonstrate how assumption modelling can be utilised within a probabilistic environment. In this research, the key themes of risk assessment, probabilistic assumption modelling and stochastic assessment of LCC has been addressed. Significant improvements in existing LCC models have been achieved in this research in an attempt to make the LCC model more accurate and meaningful to estate managers and high-level capital investment decision makers A new approach to modelling historical costs and forecasting these costs in sustainable commercial office buildings is presented based upon a combination of ANN methods and stochastic modelling of the annual forecasted data. These models provide a far more accurate representation of long-term building costs as the inherent risk associated with the forecasts is easily quantifiable and the forecasts are based on a sounder approach to forecasting than what was previously used in the commercial sector. A novel framework for modelling the facilities management costs in two sustainable commercial office buildings is also presented. This is not only useful for modelling the LCC of existing commercial office buildings as presented here, but has wider implications for modelling LCC in competing option modelling in commercial office buildings. The processes of assumption modelling presented in this work can be modified easily to represent other types of commercial office buildings. Discussions with policy makers in the real estate industry revealed that concerns were held over how these building costs can be modelled given that available historical data represents wide spending and are not cost specific to commercial office buildings. Similarly, a pilot and main survey questionnaire was aimed at ascertaining current level of LCC application in sustainable construction; ranking drivers and barriers of sustainable commercial office buildings and determining the applications and limitations of LCC. The survey result showed that respondents strongly agreed that key performance indicators and economic performance measures need to be incorporated into LCC and that it is important to consider the initial, operating and maintenance costs of building when conducting LCC analysis, respondents disagreed that the current LCC techniques are suitable for calculating the whole costs of buildings but agreed that there is a low accuracy of historical cost data.

This report presents the results of a study to determine the life-cycle cost of a radium storage and processing facility with respect to cost control, design control, cost reduction, radium supply and demand, disposal alternatives, and economic viability. The following recommendations were made: 1. The study should be refined so that one function exists for each cost estimating relationship, and costs could be controlled functionally. 2. The life-cycle model should be modified and used for tradeoff studies of alternatives for radium storage. 3. Operations and maintenance offer the greatest opportunity for cost controL Particular attention should be given to studying radium processing. 4. A systems dynamics study should explore relationships including supply and demand of radium and the desired mix of derived isotopes. 5. Studies should explore how this facility should be made economically attractive for radium custodians in contrast to present means of disposal. Consideration should be given to recycling byproducts such as platinum. 6. The entire field of alpha-particle emitters deserves a life-cycle study from the production of raw material to the use of the material in medicine. Such a study would help define the facility mission. Besides providing the above recommendations, the life-cycle study showed that successful application of alpha-particle emitters to one type of cancer could make the project economic. Further opportunities for life-cycle cost studies of the project abound / Master of Science

Bridges are vital links in many transport networks and represent a big capital investment for both governments and taxpayers. They have to be managed in a way that ensures society's needs are optimally met. In many countries, bridges are mainly managed using bridge management systems (BMSs). Although many BMSs contain some forms of life-cycle costing (LCC), the use of LCC in bridge engineering is scarce. LCC in many BMSs has mainly been applied within the bridge operation phase, even though it has several useful applications within the bridge entire life, from cradle to grave. This licentiate thesis discusses the need of a BMS with integrated comprehensive LCC tools that can assist decision-makers at all levels and within all phases in selecting the most cost-effective alternative from an array of applicable alternatives. The thesis introduces the Swedish Bridge and Tunnel Management System (BaTMan). Acomprehensive integrated LCC implementation scheme is illustrated, taking into account the bridge investment and management process in Sweden. The basic LCC analytical tools as well as other helpful LCC techniques are addressed. Detailed case studies for real bridges at different investment phases are presented to demonstrate the recent improvement of BaTMan practically in the LCC integration. Cost records for 2,508 bridges extracted from BaTMan inventory data are used as input data in the presented case studies. Considering the same records, the average real and anticipated initial costs of different bridge types in Sweden will schematically be presented. The thesis introduces a bridge LCC program developed over this research named "BaTMan-LCC". The reason for which this program was developed is to combine all possible LCC applications for bridges in one tool and facilitate its implementation. The sensitivity analysis as well as the LCC saving potential highlighted in the presented case studies emphasizes the feasibility and the possibility of developing BaTMan to accommodate the applications of BaTMan-LCC. / QC 20120301 / ETSI

Die vorliegende Ausgabe beschäftigt sich mit dem Thema vergleichende Untersuchungen zur Wasseraufbereitung mit getauchten Membranen. Es werden drei Verfahren zur Aufbereitung von Oberflächenwasser zu Trinkwasser unter technischen, ökonomischen und ökologischen Gesichtspunkten verglichen. Das Verfahren der Ultrafiltration mit getauchten Membranen wurde dazu für drei Monate in einem kleintechnischen Pilotversuch an der Aare, Schweiz, getestet und hinsichtlich der Filtrationsleistung unter Variation typischer technischer Parameter bewertet. Für das konventionelle Verfahren mit Mehrschichtfiltration und die Ultrafiltration mit Rohrmodulen wurden die Ergebnisse vorangegangener Untersuchungen ausgewertet. Die anschließende Planung der Großanlagen bildet die Grundlage für den Vergleich. Keines der betrachteten Verfahren kann sowohl im technischen, ökonomischen als auch ökologischen Vergleich eindeutig seine Vorteilhaftigkeit herausstellen. Während die Ultrafiltration mit getauchten Membranen technisch die besten Noten erhält, ist die Wirtschaftlichkeit des konventionellen Verfahrens mit Mehrschichtfiltration mit dem höchsten Kapitalwert am günstigsten bewertet. Im Ergebnis der ökologischen Betrachtung wird das Verfahren der Ultrafiltration mit getauchten Membranen als umweltfreundlichste Variante identifiziert.

Genom studien har vi kunnat identifiera hur större svenska fastighetsbolag använder LCC-kalkylen samt hur den har bearbetats. Slutsatsen har resulterat i att LCC-kalkylen har sitt största syfte i att kunna jämföra investeringsalternativ men även att LCC möjliggör det att få en helhetsbild över hela investeringens livscykel. Det är tydligt att det finns en medvetenhet gällande osäkerheter och risker som LCC-kalkylen kan befästas med. Dock har vi inte kunnat identifierat någon enhetlig hantering av dessa. Beträffande bearbetningen av LCC-kalkylen resulterar studien i att LCC-kalkylen medvetet har bearbetats för att vara vara kompatibel i den lokala miljön och för att uppnå bättre resultat samt ökad effektivitet. / Through the study, we have been able to identify how major real estate companies in Sweden use the LCC and how it has been processed. The conclusion has resulted in the LCC having its main purpose in being able to compare investment alternatives, but also that LCC makes it possible to get an overall picture of the entire investment life cycle. It is clear that there is an awareness of uncertainties and risks associated with the LCC. However, we have not been able to identify any uniform management of these. Regarding the processing of the LCC, the study results in the LCC having been deliberately processed in order to be compatible in the local environment and to achieve better results and increased efficiency.

The environmental impact from our energy production and use today is a central concern for every major decision maker regardless of interest area. Together with transport and industry, housing and services is a major contributor to our energy consumption. In 2013 housing and services accounted for 38% of the energy consumption in Sweden Therefore, energy consumption in buildings has become an area of great importance with many technological solutions developing to meet the demands from investors and legislation. However, present solutions primarily aim to solve current problems, while ongoing technological and social development is setting new conditions for future buildings. This study investigates the future of office buildings heading towards a more flexible work environment. Advancement of technology accompanied with new emerging economic and social practices is facilitating the flexibility, as well as remote work and more out-of-office time, with possible decrease of the thermal energy produced by humans and equipment. In addition, desktop computers will be replaced by energy efficient thin clients, tablets, and phones while other equipment is also becoming more energy efficient, resulting in reduced secondary heat production and thus lower internal gains. This scenario supposes reduced internal gains, resulting in decreased cooling requirements but also increased heating requirements. However, an alternative scenario with increased internal gains is also likely, due to activity-based workplaces. Activity-based offices dispose of personal desks, instead utilising activity-based areas where employees choose an area or desk where to work, depending on their current task. Disposing of personal desks supports higher occupancy, as employees working elsewhere don’t occupy workplaces at the office. Thus, the amount of desks can be matched to the actual amount of employees working at the office during peak loads. These scenarios are developed, quantified, and used as a basis for the building simulation models. These models are then optimised to meet these new conditions, utilising simulation and multi objective optimisation. The key finding is that office buildings are resilient to changing conditions, and that a state-of-theart office from today meet the demands of tomorrow. / Miljöpåverkan från vår produktion och energianvändning är idag är en central fråga för varje större beslutsfattare oavsett intresse i området. Tillsammans med transport och industri, är bostäder och service en viktig bidragande orsak till vår energiförbrukning. År 2013 bostäder och service stod för 38% av energiförbrukningen i Sverige. Därför har energiförbrukningen i byggnader kommit att få stor betydelse, vilket driver utvecklingen mot nya tekniska lösningar för att möta kraven från investerare och lagstiftning. De nuvarande lösningarna syftar dock främst till att lösa nuvarande problem, samtidigt som teknisk och social utveckling skapar nya förutsättningar för framtida byggnader. Detta projekt undersöker framtiden för kontorsbyggnader, där utvecklingen verkar vara på väg mot distansarbete, outsourcing, och mer arbetstid spenderad utanför kontoret, vilket minskar mängden interna laster som värmer upp kontoret. Samtidigt utvecklas stationära datorer och annan utrustning som ersättas med energieffektiva tunna klienter, tablets, och smarta telefoner, vilket minskar de interna lasterna ytterligare. Ett alternativt scenario är aktivitetsbaserade kontor, där de anställda inte har sin egen arbetsyta, utan istället använder aktivitetsbaserade områden beroende på arbetsuppgift. Detta scenario kan tänkas leda till ökade interna laster då ytan kan användas mer effektivt, som kan kompensera för användning av mer energieffektiv kontorsutrustning. Projektet undersöker tänkbara framtida scenarier och hur framtida kontor kan anpassas för att möta dessa nya förutsättningar med hjälp av klimat- och energisimuleringsmjukvara. Resultaten tyder på flera tydliga trender i användningen av kontorsbyggnader, men effekterna av dessa trender kan resultera i flera scenarier. Därför projektet omfattar flera scenarier för att utvärdera spannet av möjligheter. Simuleringarna tyder på att kontorsbyggnader är motståndskraftiga mot förändrade villkor, och att ett modernt kontor från idag kan möta morgondagens behov.

Two reliability analysis techniques, allocation and apportionment, have the potential to influence a system's design (a distinction is made here between allocation and apportionment). Algorithms that account for the ever increasing design complexities are constructed here for both. As designs of aircraft, railway systems, automobiles and space systems continue to push the envelope in terms of their capabilities, the importance of performance criteria such as reliability and associated life-cycle cost (LCC) consequences become even more important. These interrelated criteria are the foundation for the reliability allocation and apportionment algorithms derived in this thesis. Reliability allocation is the process of assigning reliability targets to lower-level assemblies to ensure the top-level assembly's goal is achieved. Reliability apportionment involves the analysis of an existing design configuration to determine the most cost-effective means of adding redundancy. In the apportionment problem, acquisition cost is the traditional cost-effectiveness measure. The apportionment algorithm defined herein expands the definition of cost-effectiveness to include downstream costs, thereby addressing LCC. A well-behaved, allocation routine is derived to account for any combination of serial, parallel and partially redundant configurations. In addition, a closed-form analytic solution provides the framework for economically adding redundancy to a system's structure in order to achieve a system-level reliability goal. An Apportionment Criterion Ratio (ACR), which contrasts the incremental reliability benefits of adding redundant components with the corresponding incremental LCC, is used. The Rate of Occurrence of Failure (ROCOF) is the reliability metric used in both the allocation and the apportionment routines. The formulation of the LCC model carefully distinguishes between failures and an allied measurement, demands. / Master of Science

No description available.

Der wirtschaftliche Erfolg von Unternehmen der Mobilfunkbranche wird nicht nur durch die zuverlässige Bereitstellung von Diensten und die Entwicklung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle, sondern auch durch die Planung, Errichtung und Unterhaltung qualitativ hochwertiger und kosteneffizienter Funknetzinfrastrukturen bestimmt. Angesichts eines rasanten technischen Fortschritts, der Veränderung von Kundenansprüchen sowie der Komplexität und Langlebigkeit der Funknetze stellt dies eine enorme Herausforderung dar. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird zur Sicherstellung einer langfristigen Wirtschaftlichkeit der Infrastruktur im Rahmen der Arbeit ein aus drei miteinander verzahnten Bausteinen bestehendes Modellierungs- und Managementkonzept zur Analyse und Gestaltung der Lebenszykluskosten von Funknetzinfrastrukturen entwickelt. Den ersten Baustein repräsentieren Entscheidungsmodell(system)e, deren Bildung und Auswertung sich zur Vorbereitung von Investitionsentscheidungen bei komplexen, infrastrukturbezogenen Problemstellungen eignet. Ansätze eines lebenszyklusorientierten Target Costing für die Infrastruktur von Funknetzen als zweiter Baustein tragen zum Aufdecken von Kostensenkungspotenzialen bei und liefern Ansatzpunkte zur marktgerechten Gestaltung der Infrastruktur. Die erfolgreiche Anwendung des Konzepts unterstützen Ansätze bzw. IT-Lösungen zur Bereitstellung zeit- und sachgerechter Informationen (dritter Baustein). Schließlich wird die Anwendbarkeit des Konzepts auf praxisbezogene Fragestellungen demonstriert sowie die Transferierbarkeit der Erkenntnisse auf weitere komplexe technische Systeme, hier Werkzeugmaschinen, geprüft. / The economic success of companies in the mobile communications industry is determined not only by a reliable provision of services and by the development of innovative business models, but also by the planning, construction, operation and maintenance of high quality and cost-effective radio network infrastructures. This represents an enormous challenge in view of rapid technological progress, changes in customer requirements as well as complexity and longevity of radio networks. Against this background and in order to ensure a long-term cost-effectiveness of infrastructure, a modeling and management concept that allows to analyze and to influence the life cycle costs of radio network infrastructures is developed. This concept consists of three interlinked components. (Systems of) Decision models represent the first component. They are suitable for preparing decision-making about investments in view of complex, infrastructure-related (decision) problems. Approaches of a life cycle oriented target costing for radio network infrastructures as the second component make cost reduction potentials accessible and provide starting points for the market-driven design of infrastructure. The successful application of the concept is supported by IT solutions, which provide appropriate information (third component). Finally, the practical use of the concept is demonstrated and it is investigated whether findings are transferable to other complex technical systems – here machine tools.

Der wirtschaftliche Erfolg von Unternehmen der Mobilfunkbranche wird nicht nur durch die zuverlässige Bereitstellung von Diensten und die Entwicklung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle, sondern auch durch die Planung, Errichtung und Unterhaltung qualitativ hochwertiger und kosteneffizienter Funknetzinfrastrukturen bestimmt. Angesichts eines rasanten technischen Fortschritts, der Veränderung von Kundenansprüchen sowie der Komplexität und Langlebigkeit der Funknetze stellt dies eine enorme Herausforderung dar. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird zur Sicherstellung einer langfristigen Wirtschaftlichkeit der Infrastruktur im Rahmen der Arbeit ein aus drei miteinander verzahnten Bausteinen bestehendes Modellierungs- und Managementkonzept zur Analyse und Gestaltung der Lebenszykluskosten von Funknetzinfrastrukturen entwickelt. Den ersten Baustein repräsentieren Entscheidungsmodell(system)e, deren Bildung und Auswertung sich zur Vorbereitung von Investitionsentscheidungen bei komplexen, infrastrukturbezogenen Problemstellungen eignet. Ansätze eines lebenszyklusorientierten Target Costing für die Infrastruktur von Funknetzen als zweiter Baustein tragen zum Aufdecken von Kostensenkungspotenzialen bei und liefern Ansatzpunkte zur marktgerechten Gestaltung der Infrastruktur. Die erfolgreiche Anwendung des Konzepts unterstützen Ansätze bzw. IT-Lösungen zur Bereitstellung zeit- und sachgerechter Informationen (dritter Baustein). Schließlich wird die Anwendbarkeit des Konzepts auf praxisbezogene Fragestellungen demonstriert sowie die Transferierbarkeit der Erkenntnisse auf weitere komplexe technische Systeme, hier Werkzeugmaschinen, geprüft. / The economic success of companies in the mobile communications industry is determined not only by a reliable provision of services and by the development of innovative business models, but also by the planning, construction, operation and maintenance of high quality and cost-effective radio network infrastructures. This represents an enormous challenge in view of rapid technological progress, changes in customer requirements as well as complexity and longevity of radio networks. Against this background and in order to ensure a long-term cost-effectiveness of infrastructure, a modeling and management concept that allows to analyze and to influence the life cycle costs of radio network infrastructures is developed. This concept consists of three interlinked components. (Systems of) Decision models represent the first component. They are suitable for preparing decision-making about investments in view of complex, infrastructure-related (decision) problems. Approaches of a life cycle oriented target costing for radio network infrastructures as the second component make cost reduction potentials accessible and provide starting points for the market-driven design of infrastructure. The successful application of the concept is supported by IT solutions, which provide appropriate information (third component). Finally, the practical use of the concept is demonstrated and it is investigated whether findings are transferable to other complex technical systems – here machine tools.