What is asset life?
Asset life is the expected remaining service life of a piece of plant. It drives replacement planning and is the basis for a lifecycle budget.
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<img src="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/asset-life/diagram.svg" alt="asset life — diagram from FacilityOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/asset-life">What is asset life?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk">FacilityOptix</a>
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</figure>Expected life is a starting point rather than an answer. Actual life depends on duty, environment and how well the asset has been maintained, which is why maintenance history is part of assessing it.
Its practical use is avoiding emergency replacement. Plant that fails unplanned is replaced at the worst price, on the worst timescale, with the least choice.
It is also where a maintenance regime pays for itself visibly: extending life across a portfolio is a number a finance director recognises in a way that PPM completion is not.
In practice
A chiller approaching the end of its expected life in a building with no capital plan.
It is maintained well and will fail, and when it does the replacement will be an emergency with an emergency price.
Expected life is a planning input rather than a prediction, and its value is entirely in whether it reaches somebody who writes budgets.
FM teams usually know. The gap is between knowing and the plan.
What goes wrong in practice
- Standard expected lives applied without reference to condition or duty.
- Replacement planning done by failure rather than by forecast.
- Condition surveys carried out and never used to update the forecast.