Designing a Decision Model for Purchase or lease an Asphalt Plant

Deciding whether to purchasing or leasing machinery and equipment is one of the most important decisions making in management of the roads construction project. In this paper, a new model has been designed and used for estimating the cost of one ton of asphalt in the state of purchase of asphalt plant, and compare it with the cost of one ton of asphalt in the state of lease. The cost of producing each tone of asphalt in the state of lease is a specified and deterministic cost and it is part of the decision-making process in terms of certainty, while that the cost of ownership and operation in the purchase terms are uncertain and variable. Therefore, in this paper, decision making methods in terms of uncertainty (risk) and expected value has been used for calculate purchasing costs. According to the results in each project, depending on the amount of asphalt required, there is a break-even point that for values less than this point, the rent will be economic and for more values than this point, the purchase will be economic.