Whole life cost methods for computer systems

This thesis provides an analysis of cost of ownership issues and techniques, andprovides the supporting data to enable future system designers to make rationaldecisions on design options. It represents the experience gained whilst collectingcost and cost relationship data in the Rolls-Royce group over a period or more thanfour years. This, in a time of continuous change, in both the company and the widerIT industry.The thesis is arranged in chapters, each representing a milestone conference or journalpaper. The exception to this is chapter Il- the conclusion and summary of the workin the thesis.The Chapter topics cover firstly the background of whole life cost and the aims andobjectives of the research. A relationship between whole life cost and quality isconsidered and why whole life cost is a useful measure of quality. This is examined inpractical terms of tools and methods. Case studies are used to illustrate themeasurement and use of whole life cost. The impact of obsolescence risk is nextconsidered, identifying the causes and implications of obsolescence.Case studies are used to show how the IT help desk can be used to identify and reducewhole life costs both in a deterministic and a probabilistic approach. This is followedby an examination of the costs of database systems at Rolls-Royce and Associates.Case studies of database systems are also used to show the need to collect in servicedata, and genetic algorithms are shown to be a useful tool for analysing the data.Whole life costing techniques applied to engineering systems at Rolls-Royce isexamined. It is shown that a reliability centred maintenance database is a costeffective tool in collecting data. Network monitoring software is shown to be aneffective tool for reducing the cost of ownership of IT systems.The overall conclusion is that whole life cost techniques have been shown to work forcomputer based systems, further work in this area is still needed to enable costs to befully understood and optimised.