Professional Documents
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Life Cycle Costing
Life Cycle Costing
OF AIRCRAFT
Md Jalal Uddin Rumi
Assistant Professor, AE Dept. MIST
LIFE CYCLE COSTING (LCC)
The design process proceeds from a set of stated requirements for the
product and its steps are:
• Conceptual design (the establishment of performance parameters,
operational requirements, and support policies),
• Preliminary-systems design and
• Detailed design.
Actions performed by engineers are: evaluating other design approaches,
preparing of functional design layouts, building prototype models and
software & so on. The effect of the stated activities on the environment is
also a concern in this phase.
B. THE PRODUCTION PHASE
The production phase begins when the system design is considered fixed and includes
the total flow of materials. It involves following:
• Inventories
• Material
• Acquisition and control provisions
• Tooling and test equipment
• Transportation and handling methods
• Facilities
• Personnel and
• Data
Emphasis at this point is to ensure that those characteristics which have been designed
into the system during the earlier phases of the program are indeed maintained
throughout the production process.
C. THE UTILIZATION PHASE
Functioning of the product constitutes by followings:
• The consumer use
• Incorporation of product
• System modifications and improvements
• Logistic support to keep the product operationally available and
• Planning of the disposal phase.
The operation and support costs are the highest of the LCC, but are most difficult to
predict.
This is due to the fact that the operating cost strongly depend on the operator’s
business strategy and that maintenance cost depends on failure rates and therefore
statistics.
The associated costs for operation and support may exceed the initial Acquisition Cost
(AC) by ten times.
D. THE DISPOSAL PHASE
• An aircraft landing gear shipset consist of a nose gear assembly plus two to
four main gear assemblies, depending on the aircraft type.
• Overhaul intervals for landing gears are generally calendar & flight cycle
limited, and for most models are in the region of 10-12 years and 18,000-
20,000 flight cycles. The timing of when the overhaul occurs is based on
which of the performance intervals is more limiting.
• For example, a landing gear with overhaul intervals of 10 years and 20,000
flight cycles, which is operating 2,500 flight cycles per year will occasion its
overhaul at the eight-year anniversary. Landing gears that are operating
below 2,000 flight cycles per year will have their overhaul calendar-limited to
10 years.
Landing Gear LCC Drivers
Certain LLPs can have shorter lives imposed on them by Airworthiness Directives or
other technical issues such as a decrease in fatigue characteristic.
Additionally, some engine manufacturers certify ultimate lives at the time engine
enters into service.
Other manufacturers certify the lives as experience is accumulated. In these
scenarios ultimate lives are reached after one or several life extensions.
• LLP Cost Drivers : OEM LLP escalation rates, which typically average 4% - 6% per
year.
• Typical Qualifying Work : Actual out-of-pocket materials cost without overhead
or mark-up
• Typical Excluded Work : Exchange fees, handling, packaging and shipping
charges.
Example of Engine LLP LCC
APU LCC