Sustainable Procurement in Australia: Quantity Surveyors’ Perception on Life Cycle Costing

Despite the existence of many life cycle costing (LCC) methods, LCC is not widely adopted and LCC methods are usually further tailored by practitioners. Moreover, little is known about how practising LCC improves life cycle management (LCM) especially if LCM is considered emergent and constantly developing. In a manufacturing company, LCC is prescriptively introduced to improve LCM. In the first part, this study describes how various methodological choices and other aspects of practising LCC were the outcome of contestation and conformity with extant practices and not only the best way to fulfil the LCC’s objective. This contestation can even influence if LCC is adopted. In the second part of the research, the implications of practising LCC on LCM are explored. LCC is found to positively propel LCM in many ways e.g., by spreading the life cycle idea, but may lead to a narrower understanding of the term life cycle resulting in the sustainability focus of LCM being overridden. The article also discusses how the findings can be taken into consideration when researchers develop LCC methods and when industry practises LCC.

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Sustainability Assessment with Integrated Circular Economy Principles: A Toy Case Study

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13073856 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 3856

Author(s):

Rebeka Kovačič Lukman ◽

Vasja Omahne ◽

Damjan Krajnc

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Environmental Impacts ◽

Circular Economy ◽

Social Life ◽

Product Life Cycle ◽

Sustainability Assessment ◽

Social Impacts ◽

Life Cycle Costing ◽

Social Life Cycle Assessment

When considering the sustainability of production processes, research studies usually emphasise environmental impacts and do not adequately address economic and social impacts. Toy production is no exception when it comes to assessing sustainability. Previous research on toys has focused solely on assessing environmental aspects and neglected social and economic aspects. This paper presents a sustainability assessment of a toy using environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and social life cycle assessment. We conducted an inventory analysis and sustainability impact assessment of the toy to identify the hotspots of the system. The main environmental impacts are eutrophication, followed by terrestrial eco-toxicity, acidification, and global warming. The life cycle costing approach examined the economic aspect of the proposed design options for toys, while the social assessment of the alternative designs revealed social impacts along the product life cycle. In addition, different options based on the principles of the circular economy were analysed and proposed in terms of substitution of materials and shortening of transport distances for the toy studied.

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Sensitivity Analysis of Fuzzy Activity-Based Life Cycle Costing

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201822505002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 225 ◽

pp. 05002

Author(s):

Freselam Mulubrhan ◽

Ainul Akmar Mokhtar ◽

Masdi Muhammad

Keyword(s):

Sensitivity Analysis ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Interest Rate ◽

Life Cycle Costing ◽

High Impact ◽

Final Output ◽

Left And Right ◽

The Interest Rate ◽

Operation Cost

A sensitivity analysis is typically conducted to identify how sensitive the output is to changes in the input. In this paper, the use of sensitivity analysis in the fuzzy activity based life cycle costing (LCC) is shown. LCC is the most frequently used economic model for decision making that considers all costs in the life of a system or equipment. The sensitivity analysis is done by varying the interest rate and time 15% and 45%, respectively, to the left and right, and varying 25% of the maintenance and operation cost. It is found that the operation cost and the interest rate give a high impact on the final output of the LCC. A case study of pumps is used in this study.

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