EVALUATING MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES THROUGH ECONOMIC MODELING OF HEAVY EQUIPMENT FLEETS

State transportation agencies utilize fleets of heavy equipment to construct and maintain roadways. Equipment cost models can be developed to forecast economic life, which is the point at which the average unit cost to date reaches a minimum. A calculated economic life and cost models can be used to quantify the impacts of management strategies applied to a fleet. The purpose of this research was to develop an accurate method of quantifying the results of management strategies applied to a fleet of heavy construction equipment. The strategies evaluated are related to the annual usage of the fleet and the size of the fleet. More specifically the methodology is used to adjust the economic model to consider a limit to the annual decline in machine usage and a reduction in the number of machines in the fleet. When limiting annual machine usage, a specified rate is applied to the usage of the fleet, while total usage is held constant. This causes aging at a modified rate. A reduction in fleet size also causes a change to the usage of a fleet as the fleet must use fewer machines to produce the same total usage.