Barriers in Practicing Life Cycle Costing Techniques Experienced by Sri Lankan Quantity Surveyors

Abstract

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is a tool, which can evaluate all the building-related costs over a specified period of time, as mentioned in the agreed scope. Though there are number of benefits, LCC practices of consultants in the building industry are claimed to be weak. Hence, the aim of this research is to investigate barriers in practicing LCC techniques experienced by Sri Lankan quantity surveyors. Accordingly, a mixed approached was followed in data collection through a questionnaires survey and a series of expert interviews. However, in Sri Lanka, building construction consultants are not practicing the LCC concept to a greater extent. This research identified, lack of awareness on the LCC tool by employers and practitioners, lack of knowledge on LCC and lack of previous data as the major barriers for practicing LCC techniques in local context. It was suggested that enhancing the practice of LCC through conducting various awareness programme on LCC concept, build up and maintain the proper database and introducing user friendly tools, applications, calculations methods, guidelines and regulations, will lead to avoid above mentioned barriers, which will ultimately enhance the proper practice of LCC concept in the Sri Lankan quantity surveyors.

Availability of reliable cost data for whole life costing in the Tanzania building construction industry

“…This shows that the majority of the respondents do not have a source for running cost data. Although some of the questionnaire respondents highlighted having sources for running cost data, it was contrary to the interviewees, where all responded to not having a source (Manege and Kennedy, 2020;Sandaruwan, et al, 2021) and other cost estimations needed in the building construction industry.…”

“…Results of whole life costing are often put into question due to lack of enough cost data (Sterner, 2000), and when they are available, they are usually inconsistent or not relevant for usage (El-Haram, et al, 2002). Manege and Kennedy (2020) and Sandaruwan, et al (2021) revealed that lack of reliable cost data is one of the key barriers to whole life costing application in the Tanzania building construction industry. According to Munro (2018), a problem in cost data availability in the building construction industry is getting worse.…”

Job attributes of key Sri Lankan construction professionals in addressing the challenges associated with climate change

“… [1] (Fisher et al , 2008), [2] (Xia et al , 2016), [3] (Ruparathna and Hewage, 2015), [4] (Tony, 2013), [5] (Latiffi et al , 2016), [6] (Nagalingam et al , 2013), [7] (Wong and Zhou, 2015), [8] (Bowen et al , 2010), [9] (Chamikara et al , 2020), [10] (Sandaruwan et al , 2021), [11] (Omotayo et al , 2023), [12] (Yap et al , 2022)…”