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Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate designed to help consumers and enterprise managers assess direct and indirect costs related to the purchase of any capital investment. In industry, automation computer software or hardware has a high capital investment, with little or no recoverable costs due to the fact that most control systems, with the exception of packaged equipment, are one off designs. A TCO assessment ideally offers a final statement reflecting not only the cost of purchase but all aspects in the further use and maintenance of the equipment, device, or system considered.
This includes the costs of training support personnel and the users of the system, costs associated with failure or outage (planned and unplanned), diminished performance incidents (i.e. if users are kept waiting), costs of security breaches (in loss of reputation and recovery costs), costs of disaster preparedness and recovery, floor space, electricity, development expenses, testing infrastructure and expenses, quality assurance, incremental growth, decommissioning, and more. Therefore TCO is sometimes referred to as total cost of operation. This cost can be minimised by using asset tracking management. Tracking documentation, software versions and spares are just as important in a highly regulated manufacturing process as the assets currently controlling the process. The outcome of getting these wrong can mean a loss of costs many times over if down time is suffered because of failure. TrackView helps to identify the automation equipment within the enterprise, which can sometimes be overlooked when putting together a maintenace strategy for the mechanical plant. |
