LCCA-life cycle cost analysis

Quality and reliability are issues that are essential for commercial success. For many consumer products the reliability of semiconductor circuits is high enough to cover the lifetime of the system, which can be discarded when it fails. In other applications, e.g. in aircraft or military equipment, the situation is quite different-these systems tend to be more complex, consisting of a hierarchy from the basic components to the complete system. In addition, due to the long life-cycle, maintenance operations become a dominant cost factor. To be able to consider all costs from design and manufacturing to field service and thereby consider design effects on the life-cycle, an economic model is being developed with the intention of aiding designers and system developers to create a more cost-effective system