The consideration of the life cycle costs (LZK) of a product has the advantage that in the purchase decision not only the (purchase) price of the goods but also consequential costs for e.g. Maintenance, wear parts and energy consumption are taken into account. Nevertheless, a LZK calculation in more than 50 percent of public procurement offices in Germany is seldom or even not applied. This was the result of the "Innovative Public Procurement" survey commissioned by the Competence Center for Innovative Procurement (KOINNO).
The reason for this is above all the uncertainty of many buyers to make mistakes in the calculation and thus become vulnerable to the procurement decision. This is problematic because the LZK approach is needed to procure innovations in order to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of innovative products.
The remedy is to create a selection tool for the LZK calculation. In a first step, existing tools were researched and evaluated, and the LZK characteristics (eg goals, content, process, calculation method, understanding) were recorded.
Instead of focusing on the purchase price alone, it makes sense to consider all costs incurred in the life cycle of a product. The life cycle tool picker shows for a total of 10 product groups (including lighting, vehicles, electrical appliances, office furniture) how a determination of life cycle costs can succeed.
This selection tool offers the user the possibility to search specifically for tools on life cycle costs that include one or more of these dimensions and to search for tools that meet the needs of specific product groups. All integrated tools can be accessed directly via a link.
The selection guide for the calculation of life cycle costs of the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, the Hessian Ministry of Finance and the Competence Center for Innovative Procurement is now online.
Click here for the free download: