Samenvatting

Life-cycle costing (LCC), originally developed by the US DoD, promises integrated insight in investment, maintenance, usage and disposal costs of weapon systems. In an era of tightening budgets, these opportunities have led to programs to tailor and implement LCC. At present, conceptual development of LCC concentrates on the asset itself and on defining cost categories tied to an asset. Therefore, current work tends to be somewhat reductionist, looking foremost at seemingly well-defined cost categories, and implementation aspects of LCC. This study aims to contribute to the latter by examining how LCC can support organizations in considering the ways in which they prefer to implement and use LCC. To this extent, focusing on MoD-applicable development of theory and drawing on current research and military cases, the article explores how LCC fits in with strategic decision making, asset management, and organizational capabilities.