Lifecycle · The lifecycle cost model · Element

The running cost

What the asset consumes per period once in service.

The part

What it is

Maintenance, consumables, energy, licensing, support and the staff time required to keep it working.

Running cost usually rises with age, which is what makes replacement timing an economic question rather than an engineering one.

The smallest level

The attributes it carries

Each attribute is one of the framework’s shared types. What a date is, and how it is written, is defined once for the whole model — the note here says what it means in this particular place.