Optimal preventive maintenance of leased equipment with corrective minimal repairs

For leased equipment, the lessor carries out the maintenance of the equipment. Usually, the contract of lease specifies the penalty for equipment failures and for repairs not being carried out within specified time limits. This implies that optimal preventive maintenance policies must take these penalty costs into account and properly traded against the cost of preventive maintenance actions. The costs associated with failures are high as unplanned corrective maintenance actions are costly and the resulting penalties due to lease contract terms being violated. The paper develops a model to determine the optimal parameters of a preventive maintenance policy that takes into account all these costs to minimize the total expected cost to the lessor for new item lease. The parameters of the policy are (i) the number of preventive maintenance actions to be carried out over the lease period, (ii) the time instants for such actions, and (iii) the level of action. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Enforceability of leasehold covenants and the landlord and tenant (Covenants) Act 1995

Describes the impact of the English Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995, reforming liability in the context of new leases, extending the 'touching and concerning' requirement so all covenants 'run with the land' (with some exceptions), and abolishing the enduring liability of the original tenants and landlords. Explains that landlords will have more freedom to prescribe in advance the circumstances in which they consent to an assignment, referring also to changes in default notices requiring an 'early warning' to defaulters, and overriding leases, with a remedy for former tenants. Expects future leases to be shorter as landlords realize they cannot hold original tenants liable any more.

Contractual termination of leases: lessons from the Commonwealth - Part 1

In the first of a three-part article, the writers consider the extent to which the contractual termination of a lease by frustration and acceptance of a repudiatory breach has been accepted in Commonwealth case law, notably Canada, the United States and Australia.

Contractual termination of leases: lessons from the Commonwealth - Part 3

In the final part of this article, the writers consider the interrelation between contractual termination and the various statutory provisions governing forfeiture and termination of a business tenancy under Pt II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The article concludes by suggesting that termination by acceptance of a repudiatory breach is not only a welcome, but necessary incursion into leasehold law in order to provide tenants with the ability to end the lease in cases of serious landlord default.

Decision support for lifecycle planning and risk management of small-scale biomass combined heat and power (bCHP) projects in the UK

Biomass is projected to account for approximately half of the new energy production required to achieve the 2020 primary energy target in the UK. Combined heat and power (CHP) bioenergy systems are not only a highly efficient method of energy conversion, at smaller-scales a significant proportion of the heat produced can be effectively utilised for hot water, space heating or industrial heating purposes. However, there are many barriers to project development and this has greatly inhibited deployment in the UK. Project viability is highly subjective to changes in policy, regulation, the finance market and the low cost incumbent; a high carbon centralised energy system. Unidentified or unmitigated barriers occurring during the project lifecycle may not only negatively impact on the project but could ultimately lead to project failure. The research develops a decision support system (DSS) for small-scale (500 kWe to 10 MWe) biomass combustion CHP project development and risk management in the early stages of a potential project’s lifecycle. By supporting developers in the early stages of project development with financial, scheduling and risk management analysis, the research aims to reduce the barriers identified and streamline decision-making. A fuzzy methodology is also applied throughout the developed DSS to support developers in handling the uncertain or approximate information often held at the early stages of the project lifecycle. The DSS is applied to a case study of a recently failed (2011) small-scale biomass CHP project to demonstrate its applicability and benefits. The application highlights that the proposed development within the case study was not viable. Moreover, further analysis of the possible barriers with the DSS confirmed that some possible modifications to be project could have improved this, such as a possible change of feedstock to a waste or residue, addressing the unnecessary land lease cost or by increasing heat utilisation onsite. This analysis is further supported by a practitioner evaluation survey that confirms the research contribution and objectives are achieved.