University of Washington

Design for Environment Lab

Directed by Emeritus Professor Joyce Cooper (cooperjs@uw.edu) 

Me498C, ME599D, & ME599E Life Cycle Costing

Fall 2020

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is a structured research method to evaluate the costs of a product, process, or service through its life cycle (i.e., from financing through purchase, manufacturing, installation, use/ maintenance, and retirement).   When applied to existing or emerging technologies, superior systems are deployed.

Instructor: Professor Joyce Cooper, cooperjs@uw.edu

Class format  The class explores the use of LCC with systematic review, database development, meta analysis, and design of experiments in technology assessment.  Students prepare an LCC analysis on a topic of their choice (e.g., a personal interest, a job they have or want, a capstone or MS project, a thesis or dissertation, etc.). Project documentation is submitted throughout the quarter as a goal and scope report, an LCC analysis report, and a final report including interpretation of the results.

Textbooks and Standards (available through the UW Libraries)

  • Farr and Faber (2018) Engineering Economics of Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • ASTM E2204 Standard Guide for Summarizing the Economic Impacts
  • ASTM E917 Standard Practice for Measuring Life-Cycle Costs
  • ASTM E1369 Standard Guide for Selecting Techniques for Treating Uncertainty and Risk in the Economic Evaluation

Draft Syllabus 

•    WEEK 1: Course introduction
•    WEEK 2: Engineering economics review and project pitches

–    READ: Farr & Faber (2018) Chapter 1
–    REVIEW: Farr & Faber (2018) Chapters 2-4

•    WEEK 3: Goal and scope definition and the structure of a baseline analysis

•    WEEK 4:  Baseline analysis: ASTM waste heat recovery case study

•    WEEK 5:  Baseline analysis: GHP case study

•    WEEK 6:  Advanced LCC models: introduction

•    WEEK 7:  Advanced LCC models: parameter values and the GHP case study

•    WEEK 8:  Opportunities for improvement

•    WEEK 9:  Student project presentations      

•    WEEKS 10-11:  Wrap-up


Class Project

Final Report:  Final project reports must not exceed 25 pages of text, figures, and tables (not including appendices).  Text throughout the document should not be smaller than 8-point.  Figures and tables should be integrated within the text of the description unless they are clearly part of an appendix.  All in-text and listed citations should be in a standard format (e.g., APA format)