Wikidata:Property proposal/effective life of asset

‎effective life of asset

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   Under discussion
Descriptionduration of time which an object/asset is expected to be used before needing to be disposed of or replaced
Data typeQuantity
Domainartificial object (Q16686448)
Allowed unitsunit of time (Q1790144) or any other useful unit of measurement for lifespan of an object (kilometres traveled, engine hours, flight hours, etc)
Example 1CT scanner (Q128486784)10 years
Example 2combine harvester (Q26886)12 years
Example 3laptop (Q3962)2 years
SourceExample: https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?DocID=ITD/EF20151C8/00001&PiT=99991231235958
Expected completenessalways incomplete (Q21873886)
See alsodiscontinued date (P2669), service retirement (P730), life expectancy (P2250)

Motivation

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There is no property existing for the expected useful lifespan of an artificial object (such as a machine, tool, vehicle or building) after which it is expected the object needs replacing due to wear and tear, obsolescence, lack of support and lack of maintainability.

This concept is useful in finance for determining the current value of a purchased asset for taxation and financial reporting reasons. It is also useful for consumer items such as toothbrushes, phones, computers which are replaced regularly for reasons of wear and tear and obsolescence of technology.

--Dhx1 (talk) 03:23, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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  •   Oppose This varies per product and also the lifespan of a laptop obviously is not just 2 years. --Prototyperspective (talk) 09:46, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My thought with this property proposal is that qualifiers such as determination method or standard (P459) and the references are critical. This property could be used 10 times on laptop (Q3962) all with different sources such as standards for asset management and taxation depreciation schedules of different governments. Thus the users of this property have to pick and choose whichever of these 10 statements is most useful to them. For example, the life of a laptop (Q3962) could be 5 years after first product release until it is typically expected to be obsolete and would be scrapped, could by 3 years as determined by continuous use causing battery degradation and wear and tear typically requiring replacement, could differ in expectations between a government in country X versus country Y depending on affluence of the country and wiliness to adopt newer technologies and scrap older ones seen as obsolete, etc. Dhx1 (talk) 12:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know of anybody who would replace a laptop after just 5 years. Moreover, the planned obsolescence of laptops, smartphones, several plastic products, and so on are a major problem and WD should not normalize or reinforce that by suggesting this is how long these products inherently last. They can last much longer, for example via standardized replacement parts + requirement to be somewhat modular and having parts (such as battery) offered individually. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Weak support It's connected to depreciation of an item, which is a correct accounting notion. But weak support from me, because it needs to have qualifiers like Determination method, Usage frequency of some sort. I would suggest looking up various calculation methods of the effective life of a depreciating asset, writing them out and starting to propose these qualifiers along with this property. Without these qualifiers, the property alone is deceiving. --David Osipov (talk) 12:18, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Weak support I agree that it needs to be way more precise. It represents depreciation (Q114403).
    For me the property name that would better fit the source indicated would be "legally-based usual depreciation period". The definition would be "usual depreciation period of an asset legally fixed by a fiscal administration and used for accounting purposes"
    Qualifer could be end time (P582), start time (P580) and valid in place (P3005).
    The value could be a range, for example 5-10 years, I don't know how this would translate in terms of allowed units.
    The property should not imply this is the desirable lifetime of an object (question related to sustainability issues such as eco-design and other calculations methods such as life cycle analysis), nor imply this is the actual lifetime of an object (question related to the analysis of real life practices). Jeanne Noiraud (talk) 20:37, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose something like "depreciation period" would be a better way to store information on the legal depreciation period than a more generally named property. ChristianKl09:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]