Optioneering & Solutions Optimisation

Being an engineering activity, optioneering tends to be focused on technical, operational and financial requirements. Risk has also had some input, but has tended to be considered a method of identifying minor design changes. However, in recent years, it has become increasing more common to select a design option based on its Whole Life Costs.

Life-Cycle Costs Drive Asset Selection

apm has been fortunate enough to have been involved in developing Life Cycle models, in various forms, since its incorporation. Most commonly, such models have predicted costs and revenue of assets over 1, 7 and even 30 years. They have been used to decide upon the correct overall asset strategy to be taken.

More recently, we applied our modelling capability to specifically assess more than 40 different locations of the Crossrail route accross London, each location having up to 3 different design options, containing various asset types, new and existing assets. apm modelled every design option, providing whole life costs for each. Results formed part of the Options Selection process, from which a single option was taken forward to the next detailed design iteration.

It was clear from the exercise that Whole Life Costs proved to be a major driver in the final selection decision. This was primarily due to the full spectrum of costs and revenues that can be considered by such models, including:

• Initial asset costs (design and build)
• On-going capital costs as a result of upgrades or modernisations
• Planned maintenance costs
• Reactive maintenance costs
• Revenue earned via performance-penalties costs