The Influence of Machinery and Equipment Degradation on Their Depreciation

Abstract

The preparation of financial statements in accordance with IFRS involves the choice of such methods of depreciation for assets that are supposed to reflect most accurately the expected pattern of consumption of future economic benefits from the use of assets. However, in relation to machinery and equipment items this requirement is difficult to implement, since it is not clear how to understand and measure the economic benefits associated with such assets and the pattern of their consumption. In our opinion, the consumption of future economic benefits from the use of an asset is reflected in its fair value, and the depreciation of an asset over a period of time expresses a decrease in the fair value of the asset in that period. Having regard to this position, it is necessary to be be choosing such a depreciation method which affords the best correspondence between the carrying amount of assets and their fair values. We show that the often used linear depreciation method does not satisfy this requirement even for an asset that generates equal annual benefits from year to year. The article is devoted to the selection of the most suitable method of depreciation for machinery and equipment items. In our opinion, it is necessary to take into account the dynamics of their degradation processes (deterioration of operational characteristics). In this regard, we provide numerous data on a decrease in productivity and an increase in operating costs with age for various machinery and equipment categories. The analysis of such data allows us to offer a simple linear model of machine impair­ment/de­gradation, as well as a depreciation method based on it. This method turns out to resemble the sum of the years’ digits method and can be considered as a generalization of such a method. Its applicability to measuring the depreciation of real machinery and equipment items is confirmed by the results of economic and mathematical modeling and experimental estimates.