Building Life Cycle Analisys Tool

Abstract

The Façade Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Tool records and compares costs of multiple façade systems, evaluating alternatives through detailed KPIs. It supports flexible data input—from total costs to granular details—across all life-cycle phases, automatically calculating project KPIs. The tool delivers cost estimations, comparative KPIs, and visual outputs, helping stakeholders optimize façade system selection.

Introduction

The tool allows the user to record all the costs connected to the - possibly multiple - façade systems of a building. It is also possible to compare costs and key performance indicators (KPIs) of different alternative façade solutions for the same building. The objects typically involved in the life-cycle costs analysis tool are a building and its façades. To one building can correspond many types of façades. Once modelled the project in terms of types of façades and its specific component/subcomponents, the user is asked to fill multiple forms with costs connected to each life-cycle phase of the façade systems.

A general feature of the tool is that the data can be inserted with different levels of detail, depending on the format and detail of the data available by the user for each case study. Therefore, the cost of a certain life-cycle phase can be inserted as a total aggregated value or divided in cost items (e.g. materials, labour, equipment…), or subdivided in components or subcomponents (e.g. Facade layers, Façade components, windows or window components such as insulated glazing unit, frame…). Independently of the compilation mode, the tool sums the different cost items of each phase in order to calculate the KPIs of that phase of the project.

The outcome of the tool is an estimation of the life-cycle costs for the system and a set of KPIs. Furthermore, the user receives a set of visual representations through graphs of the above-mentioned data.