Impacts of Life-Cycle Mgt. on Industry, Government and Society

• Obvious benefits of – productivity gains by industry– higher (perceived?) safety– Lower user costs– Lower total costs? (over what time period)– Proper accounting of the benefits?– Improved aesthetic qualities– Increase competence of the infrastructure decision-making profession– More careful consideration of equity issues

• Extensive discussion that the impacts can not be understood separately from how our decision-making processes function– How do we make life-cycle mgt. concepts synergistic with the budgeting and

political processes?– How do companies balance life-cycle perspectives of their infrastructures

against other business imperatives?– How should industry and government collaborate to ensure the necessary

infrastructure?• How does government provide incentives to motivate life-cycle mgt. approaches

in industry?

Education: Curriculum at the BS, MS and Ph.D Level

Education: Curriculum at the BS Level

• Should improve awareness• Use proper examples in various courses to illustrate the concept• Need textbooks (casebooks)• Challenge: LCM requires more than engineering know-how. Needs

a change in the fundamental paradigm of engineering education.• There is a need to transfer research findings in LCM to the

curriculum– Sense that LCM is not “fully” developed yet but as it evolves it should be

worked into the curriculum• Key question: What is role of CE undergraduate degree?

• Is it “technical skills?• Is it decision-making in the mgt. of infrastructure systems?• Should we be creating opportunities to create both types of civil engineers?

– If yes, how?– 4 years is short?

Ph.D. Education

• Research for LCM occurs here• Pool from which faculty with this

perspective will come from so it is critical to think carefully about it

• What skills should these students have? What is the balance between “traditional” skills and systems modeling, economics, mgt. etc.– Breath vs. depth?