Sassda’s ground breaking Lifecycle Costing Competition culminated in the once in a life time trip for winner Amrish Punwasi and his family to the Eiffel Tower and beyond, at the end of April 2018.
Amrish organised for both his, and his wife’s parents to join them on the trip which began in Paris where they not only visited the Eiffel Tower (of course!) but also experienced some incredible Parisian cuisine and explored some of the world renowned landmarks in the City of Gold including the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre. The trip didn’t end there though as the group of intrepid South Africans, extended their trip to Berlin and Amsterdam also taking in a host of sights and sounds in these incredible cities.
To enter the Eiffel Tower life-cycle costing competition in 2017, Amrish along with sixty other accurate finalists, proved that while stainless steel is generally costlier than other materials initially, it delivers lower long-term costs in the life-cycle of the construction.
The competition required that entrants download Sassda’s Lifecycle Costing app to calculate the cost savings that could have been achieved if the Eiffel Tower had been constructed out of stainless steel, either 3CR12 or LDX 2101, rather than mild steel. The calculation needed to take the current inflation rate, the cost of capital and the real interest rate into account, together with its ongoing maintenance and painting expenditure.
Speaking about his R125 000 win, Punwasi who works for the Western Cape Provincial Government’s Department of Health in security management explains; “I am not an engineer, my wife is the engineer and she gets monthly magazines that I often read. I saw the competition announced in the Civil Engineering SAICE magazine and decided to enter myself for the fun of it and to see how easy the app was to use…which it was!
“It truly was a trip of a lifetime and one that myself and our families will never forget. I cannot thank Sassda enough for this incredible experience and hope that the Lifecycle Costing competition goes from strength to strength in future years.”
