Life Cycle Costing

Life Cycle Costing is the cost of an asset, or its parts, throughout its life cycle, while fulfilling the performance requirements.

Stainless steel is frequently perceived as an expensive material, leading many to overlook it for their projects due to initial purchasing costs. However, while the upfront investment may be higher, the whole life cycle cost often proves to be lower than that of alternative materials. When conducting a whole life cycle costing analysis, it’s essential to consider not just the initial material cost, but also factors such as fabrication, installation, operation, maintenance, downtime, replacement due to wear, and residual value. Investing in stainless steel can lead to significant long-term savings and enhanced durability, making it a smart choice for sustainable projects.

In this section you can find reports and calculation tools for the life cycle cost of stainless steel applications.

Stainless Steel Life Cycle Cost Benefits

worldstainless has developed an easy to use card which explains briefly why a developer should consider using stainless steel and calculate the life cycle cost of a project to discover stainless steel is often a long-term cost-effective solution.

Stainless steel is often seen as an expensive material and therefore not considered for a project due to the initial purchasing cost. Although the initial cost of the stainless steel material may be higher, the whole life cycle cost is often lower than for other materials. A whole life cycle costing calculation should include materials, fabrication, installation, operation, maintenance, down time, replacement due to wear and residual value. A calculation formula is provided on the card.

Download the card here (pdf | 310.95 KB)

Life cycle costing in the City of Melbourne

In recent times, the City of Melbourne in Australia undertook a life cycle costing comparison between Carbon Steel and Stainless Steel for use for its street furniture. The products considered and manufactured included bins, seats, benches and drinking fountains.

In cooperation with the City of Melbourne, worldstainless has published the results of the life cycle costing study.

Download the case study (pdf | 2.11 MB)

LCC Case Study: Schaffhausen Bridge

For the Schaffhausen Bridge over the river Rhine, three options were considered for the rebar reinforcement: carbon steel, epoxy coated steel and stainless steel.

See the case study (pdf | 198.56 KB)

LCC software

This LCC calculator can be used as a decision support tool for your projects.
Source: Southern Africa Stainless Steel Development Association

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Life cycle costing application usage

This LCC application is specific to materials selection. It allows assessment of the potential long-term cost benefits against short-term expediency when choosing a material. It incorporates discounted cash flows to reduce all costs to comparable present values, thereby allowing realistic economic comparisons between alternative choices.
Source: Specialty Steel Industry of North America

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Life cycle costing and stainless steel

A basic attribute of stainless steel is the ability to provide long-term performance with a minimum of downtime and cost associated with maintenance. As a result LCC is of particular importance to the stainless industry. Whilst the mathematics of LCC can be quite complex an IBM or compatible PC program on floppy disk has been developed. This can be easily applied to most examples.
Source: Australian Stainless Steel Development Association

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