Whole life-cycle costs: a new approach

The last few years have seen significant improvements in the concepts, methods and the general approaches to calculating costs. ABC, Target Costing, Strategic Cost Management, functional analysis and costing are mobilising attention. Regardless of which of these approaches we consider, it is always from the point of view of one player whose intention is to benefit from increased knowledge of costs in order to achieve an increased control over their value-chain and profit-margins. This self-centred vision is also present in the Product Life Cycle (PLC) costing or the cost of the PLC concept, which is firmly anchored in product marketing. We are of the opinion that this type of economic calculation no longer fits our current industrial systems, which are based on networks of partners contributing to R&D, manufacturing and services. The network of the organisations represents a growing complexity, necessitating even more complex costing and management methods than the recent innovations.