At different stages of production, a business entity uses means and objects of labor, the natural environment, as well as living labor. All these factors are fundamental for the release of goods, the implementation of work and the provision of various services. The combination of objects and means of labor is the basis of the production potential of a business entity. Their material and material content are production assets, subdivided into fixed and current assets. These categories act as the material and technical base of the production process.
Basic production assets are a variety of tools, which are apparatuses and machines, structures and buildings, etc., which differ in the following features:
- are multiple participants in the process of processing raw materials and finished products;
- retain their original content and form;
- share their value in shares in the price of the finished product.
Basic production assets (OPF) have various types, play a variety of roles in the technological process, and also have different service lives and functions. Therefore, there is a need for their classification.
Fixed production assets can be divided into groups depending on their participation in the production process. Another important sign of classification is the function performed by the OPF.
By the degree of involvement in the technological process, the main production assets can be taken into account in the form of an active and passive part. The first of them includes the means of labor that have a direct impact on objects in the implementation of their processing and obtaining the finished product. The active part of the OPF consists of machinery and equipment, transmission devices, as well as specialized tools. The passive group includes structures and buildings, equipment and vehicles. This is a set of fixed assets that do not affect the process of production of goods, but their presence is an objective necessity.
According to functional characteristics, fixed assets are divided into several groups. These include:
1. Buildings, the main function of which is to create conditions for the installation and operation of production machines, vehicles, equipment and other equipment, as well as for the work of the labor collective (buildings of production shops, warehouses, garages, laboratories, offices and so on).
2. Facilities that perform the functions of storing extracted natural raw materials and ensuring production (mines, quarries, trestles, tanks, and so on).
3. Transmission mechanisms that transport various types of energy, fuel and raw materials to the place of their direct use (power networks, product pipelines, and so on).
4. Machines and equipment that implements the main production processes (electric motors, computers, compressors, machine tools and so on).
5. Vehicles that are designed to move raw materials and finished products (cars, diesel locomotives, autocars, trolleys, and so on).
6. Tools, household and industrial equipment with a useful life of more than twelve months.
The efficiency of fixed assets used by the enterprise is determined using a number of indicators that have differences in economic nature (generalizing and particular) and unit of measurement (in kind and value). They are installed for a comprehensive analysis and use of reserves, allowing the most fully include non-current assets in technological processes.
Such indicators of fixed assets as profitability, capital productivity and capital intensity, the volume of products sold and increased labor productivity, lower costs for the production of goods and the reproduction of non-current assets are classified as generalized. The ratios of depreciation, retirement, renewal, use and loading of non-current assets are private. Together, these two types of indicators are used to conduct a comprehensive analysis of fixed assets.