Indicative Economic Life Expectancy Tool (2020)

The CIBSE Indicative Economic Life Expectancy Table was published in January 2020 as Appendix 12.A1 of the 2014 edition of Guide M Maintenance engineering and management.

A new edition of these tables - a collaboration between CIBSE's Facilities Management Group, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and SFG20, a BESA working group - is in the works. This new version will look and act more like a digital tool. For now, however, please continue to use these 2020 tables.

The 2020 tool acknowledges the development of many task schedules produced by SFG20 since the publication of Guide M in 2014, and also includes amendments to align fully with the RICS New Rules of Measurement (NRM) 1 and 3.

This table provides an industry consensus view of ‘common data classifications’ for all building engineering services, bringing together CIBSE Guide M, RICS NRM 1 and 3 and BESA’s SFG20 data standards:

• RICS NRM 3: asset description; coding
• CIBSE Guide M, Appendix 12.A1: indicative economic life expectancy
• BESA SFG20 task schedules (codes)

This common data classification may be used by clients, facilities managers and contractors to provide the structured asset information needed for the implementation of building information management (BIM) and effective data exchange during the operational phase of asset life.

Such data can support a number of key applications, including:

• project handover to operations and maintenance
• basis for tendering maintenance and renewal works
• asset inventory for setting up maintenance registers
• asset structure for condition surveying
• asset structure for life cycle renewal planning
• setting-up computer maintenance management systems, often known as CAFM/Asset Management systems
• asset information modelling for BIM projects throughout the asset life cycle (to provide 5D and 6D to 3D and BIM modelling)
• facilitates data sharing and exchanging data throughout the asset life cycle at various stages and levels of detail (e.g. product data templates).