On the consideration of reliability in the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA).: A review of basic models

Life cycle costing is a well-established method used to evaluate alternative asset options. This methodology takes into account all costs arising during the life cycle of the asset. In this paper we explore different aspects relied with the 'non reliability' costs within the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), and we describe three basic models found in literature (constant failures rate, deterministic failures rate and Weibull distribution failures rate), these models allow to quantify the economic impact that could cause the diverse failures in the entire costs. The paper also contains a case study where we applied the above mentioned concepts and models to the life cycle cost assessment of a certain asset. Finally we do present a summary of results and discuss about the limitations of the different models. The paper concludes presenting possible directions of future research work.