The article is concerned with competitive cost and availability estimates of complex engineering systems at the bidding stage of availability type support services contracts (CfA). Such estimates are important to calculate the best price that will win the contract in a competitive bidding...

Contracting for Availability (CfA) is an increasingly adopted commercial process which consists of a partnership between customer and solution provider(s) towards supporting system availability for long periods with the target of better value for money. In a competitive bidding process,...

This paper develops an agent-based model to estimate the likelihood of the No Fault Found (NFF) phenomenon. NFF events are critical problems as the root cause of an issue cannot be diagnosed. This makes it difficult to quantify associated costs as potentially serviceable equipment is being...

An Industrial Product-Service System (iPS2) is a system that integrates products and services based on systems thinking in an industrial context. Compared with services alone, it creates opportunities for better economic and environmental outcomes because of the additional design parameters,...

Life-cycle costing is a practical approach to estimate the total cost of ownership in product-service systems. In high-value manufacturing sectors, due to the complication of overhaul invoices, shop visits, repair and maintenance interventions, identifying service cost reduction opportunities...