systecon lifecycle management

Spreadsheet-Based Costing Puts Fleet Decisions at Risk

Within Services and Support organizations in aerospace and defence OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), technical decisions made today define fleet performance, cost, and availability for decades.

Teams responsible for technical solutions across the fleet, whether a fleet of aircraft, ground vehicles, or naval vessels, including modifications, enhancements, technical support, maintenance planning, and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Direct Maintenance Cost (DMC) calculations, operate at the centre of this responsibility. Several Business Units carry accountability for cost and decision transparency, often supported by parallel analyses and assumptions.

But when cost data is fragmented, inconsistent, or difficult to trace, the risk is not just inefficiency, it is misinformed decisions with long-term consequences.

When Cost Data Is Scattered, Decisions Slow Down

When aerospace and defence service organizations accept the risk of operating without a proven cost calculation capability such as Opus Suite’s, LCC and DMC studies often rely on:

  • Multiple spreadsheets
  • Manually maintained cost structures
  • Differing assumptions between Business Units
  • Limited traceability between technical changes and cost impact

Over time, this leads to:

  • Repeated recalculation of similar cost elements
  • Inconsistent results across Business Units
  • Increased effort spent explaining numbers instead of analysing them
  • The immediate impact may seem manageable, but over the lifecycle, the cost compounds.

The Hidden Impact on Maintenance Planning and Technical Solutions

Maintenance plans, modifications, and technical enhancements are deeply interconnected with lifecycle cost.

When organizations continue to rely on spreadsheet-based cost calculations:

  • Maintenance plan changes are evaluated in isolation
  • Cost impacts of technical modifications are underestimated or identified too late
  • LCC/DMC assessments become reactive rather than predictive

This increases the risk that technical decisions optimize performance while silently degrading cost efficiency, or vice versa.
 

The Risk of Parallel Cost Truths

When several Business Units maintain their own spreadsheet-driven LCC/DMC logic, the organisation gradually creates multiple “versions of the truth.”

This results in:

  • Difficult internal alignment
  • Longer review and approval cycles
  • Reduced confidence in cost-based decision support
  • Challenges when communicating cost impact to customers and leadership
  • Over time, the real cost is not just financial, it is lost decision velocity and credibility. 
     

Over time, the real cost is not just financial, it is lost decision velocity and credibility.

Turning Cost into a Structured Decision Input

Addressing these risks requires more than better spreadsheets; it requires a structured, traceable, and repeatable cost calculation capability.

This is where Opus Suites Cost Control capability provides critical value by replacing spreadsheet-driven cost analysis with a proven cost calculation capability.

It enables organizations to:

  • Define and reuse consistent cost breakdown structures
  • Allocate costs transparently across fleets, systems, and activities
  • Link changes in technology, maintenance strategies, and supply assumptions directly to cost impact
  • Support LCC and DMC calculations with traceable, auditable data

For example, small changes in maintenance assumptions and spare parts consumption, often hidden or simplified in spreadsheets, can translate into millions in additional cost when scaled across an entire fleet over decades of operation.

For teams conducting frequent LCC/DMC studies and maintenance plan reviews, Opus Suite transforms cost analysis from an after-the-fact reporting exercise into an integrated part of technical decision-making.  

By enabling structured sensitivity analyses across systems and assumptions, organisations can assess how changes in maintenance concepts, supplier strategies, or operational conditions affect cost and risk over time. This makes it possible not only to quantify cost impact, but also to identify key cost drivers, evaluate uncertainties, and actively mitigate risk at a system-wide level, before decisions are locked in. 

The Consequences of Continuing with Spreadsheet-Based Costing

When cost analysis remains spreadsheet-driven:

  • Cost studies stay labour-intensive
  • Technical and cost decisions drift apart
  • Knowledge remains locked in individuals rather than systems

In an environment where services competitiveness, availability commitments, and cost transparency are critical differentiators for aerospace and defence OEMs, these consequences grow quietly over time.

A Stronger Basis for Fleet-Level Decisions

Opus Suite does not replace engineering expertise or business judgement, it reinforces both.

By moving away from spreadsheets and establishing a proven cost calculation capability across Services and Support organisations, it enables:

  • Faster and more consistent LCC/DMC studies
  • Better-informed maintenance, modification, and support decisions
  • Higher confidence in internal alignment and external communication

The question is no longer whether cost matters, but how much money is being lost when decisions rely on spreadsheets rather than a proven cost calculation capability.