Reliability in the whole life cycle of building systems

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to show that reliability analysis and its implementation will lead to an improved whole life performance of the building systems, and hence their life cycle costs (LCC). Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses reliability impacts on the whole life cycle of building systems, and reviews the up-to-date approaches adopted in UK construction, based on questionnaires designed to investigate the use of reliability within the industry. Findings – Approaches to reliability design and maintainability design have been introduced from the operating environment level, system structural level and component level, and a scheduled maintenance logic tree is modified based on the model developed by Pride. Different stages of the whole life cycle of building services systems, reliability-associated factors should be considered to ensure the system's whole life performance. It is suggested that data analysis should be applied in reliability design, maintainability design, and maintenance policy development. Originality/value – The paper presents important factors in different stages of the whole life cycle of the systems, and reliability and maintainability design approaches which can be helpful for building services system designers. The survey from the questionnaires provides the designers with understanding of key impacting factors

Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Versions of research Citation for published version Link to record in KAR Document Version Author's Accepted Manuscript 1 Reliability in the whole life cycle of building systems

Abstract As the business environment becomes increasingly more competitive, it is essential that all available resources are used optimally and effectively. The need to place reliability at the forefront of design for building systems is becoming increasingly important, as operational failures, inadequate maintenance policies and logistic support issues, directly and/or indirectly, affect the through life performance and adversely affect business. Reliability analysis and its' implementation will lead to an improved whole life performance of the building systems. This paper analyses reliability impacts on the whole life cycle of building systems. It also reviews the up-to-date approaches adopted in UK construction, based on questionnaires designed to investigate the use of reliability within the industry. Suggestions on the use of reliability analysis in design are finally made in the paper