Life Cycle Management of Infrastructures

Abstract

By a definition, life cycle management (LCM) is a framework "of concepts, techniques and procedures to address environmental, economic, technological and social aspects of products and organizations to achieve continuous" sustainable "improvement from a life cycle perspective" (Hunkeler et al. 2001). Thus, LCM theoretically integrates all sustainability dimensions and it strives to provide a holistic perspective. It also assists in efficient and effective use of constrained natural and financial resources to reduce negative impacts on the society (Sonnemann and Leeuw 2006;Adibi et al. 2015). Life cycle management of infrastructures is the adaptation of product lifecycle management (PLM), like techniques to the design, construction, and management of infrastructures. Infrastructure lifecycle management requires accurate and extensive information that might be generated through different kind of intelligent and connected information workflows, like Building Information Modelling (BIM). contribute to prompt economic activities, like transport system, built environment and communication system (Fourie 2006).The importance of infrastructures on sustaining societal welfare, economic growth, and environmental protection has been admired and highlighted throughout the time (Sahely et al. 2005; Ugwu and Haupt 2007;Palei 2015). In fact, their significances are often characterized based on two dominant elements; capital goods -i.e. stock and flow variables -and ownership -i.e. public vs. private (Fourie 2006). These elements characterize the domain at which infrastructures involve and contribute, like high-level versus low-level infrastructure services that creates benefits for a large or small number of users.

Life cycle management of natural infrastructure: assessment of state of practice and current tools

“…Life cycle management is broad in that it can be applied to a wide range of products, processes, and systems. Infrastructure life cycle management utilizes methods from business product life cycle management for the design, construction and management of infrastructure elements or systems (Wallbaum and Ebrahimi, 2021). Assessment of infrastructure life cycle takes place during planning and requires tools and data to estimate anticipated asset costs and benefits for all parts of a project life cycle including 1) acquisition and/or construction, 2) performance, 3) operation and/ or management, 4) maintenance, 5) rehabilitation, and 6) decommissioning and disposal (The Institute of Asset Management, 2015).…”