Terotechnology

If therey's anyone out there looking for some impressive-sounding words to throw around at the next neighborhood block party, we've got your back. Please allow us to introduce “terotechnology,” a word that sounds fancy, but really has a pretty simple meaning: it’s the way in which we figure out how to maximize the lifespan and usefulness of a machine or other piece of physical equipment.

Specifically, terotechnology measures the cost of owning a physical asset over its entire lifespan, and looks for ways to decrease that cost while increasing the lifespan.

For example, let’s think about a car. If we own a car, we probably know how much we paid for it and how much it costs to insure it and fill it with gas. But cars are expensive, which is why we also know that, if we take care of the car (change its oil like we’re supposed to, take it in for tune-ups, keep it gunk-free, avoid driving it like we stole it, and don’t wreck or submerge it), then it will probably last a lot longer than it would otherwise.

In other words, a combination of care, preventive maintenance, repairs, foresight, and good car management will all help to extend the life and lower the ownership costs of our vehicle. In other other words, we just described terotechnology: we took a holistic, multidisciplinary look at physical asset ownership and figured out how to make it cost less, last longer, and provide more benefit to the owner.