Improving of the methodology for the economic justification of business decisions at agricultural enterprises based on the interests of consumers

. The improved method of evaluating the economic efficiency of projects for agricultural machinery modernization is developed and tested in the study. Traditional approaches are based on the use of investment project analysis methods to determine the economic efficiency of agricultural machinery modernization for the manufacturer. The suggested method includes the application of an integrated approach to evaluate the economic efficiency of equipment upgrade for both the manufacturer and the consumer. Benefits for the consumer are determined based on the specifics of developed technical solutions, which can be aimed at increasing the output of the machine, reducing operating costs, etc. The suggested method is tested using the example of analyzing the economic efficiency of the project for upgrading the pre-start system of the tractor engine with the application of a phase transition heat accumulator. The analysis conducted shows sufficient economic viability of technical solutions for both the manufacturer and the consumer of the tractor and indicates the potential for successful use of the improved method.


Introduction
The issue of evaluating the economic efficiency of investments related to the modernization of agricultural machinery seems to be quite relevant in the current economic conditions [1][2][3]. The necessity for an adequate feasibility study is determined by the need to select and implement viable technical solutions to improve the quality and expand the functionality of agricultural equipment. Discussions in academic literature are devoted not only to the problem of feasibility assessment of projects for manufacturing upgraded machinery, but also to overcoming the barriers related to determining the benefits of machinery improvement for the consumer of agricultural machines [4,5]. Such benefits may include additional income, operating cost savings, or other benefits.
Traditional approaches to feasibility study of agricultural machinery improvement are based on the use of a number of indicators, including the payback period, return on invested capital, net present value, profitability index, internal rate of return, break-even indicators, etc. [6][7][8]. At the same time, it should be noted that such projects often include a certain share of novelty, therefore, their assessment in terms of efficiency of investment decisions appears to be limited. The issue of measuring innovation performance is one of the fundamental problems of recent decades for researchers in the field of economics [9,10].Simple solutions, such as calculating additional indicators, including return on innovation investment or economic value added, are often not enough to evaluate the viability of innovation project proposals. In this regard, there are attempts to apply the methods of scenario analysis, risk analysis, fuzzy logic methods, etc. as part of feasibility study of innovative projects in order to obtain more adequate results for making sound management decisions [11,12]. One of the promising areas of research of this issue is the search for solutions aimed at evaluating the benefits of agricultural machinery modernization projects for the consumer.
The purpose of this study is to improve the methods for the feasibility assessment of agricultural equipment upgrading by evaluating the economic efficiency of projects under consideration both for the manufacturer and the consumer based on the calculation of suggested indicators.

Materials and methods
The improved method for evaluating the economic efficiency of investments in agricultural machinery upgrading is tested using the example of improving the engine system of a tractor used to perform various types of agricultural, as well as transport and loading operations. The main characteristics of the machine are shown in Table 1. The modernization involves the development of a tractor engine pre-start system using a phase transition heat accumulator in order to reduce the engine pre-start preparation time. The purpose of the upgrade is to increase the reliability of the machine, as well as to reduce operating costs for the consumer. For the base case, the characteristics of the existing machine are presented. The projected case includes characteristics of the tractor with the improved engine pre-start system. The evaluation of economic efficiency of the project under consideration is carried out with the use of the method, developed on the basis of existing approaches' analysis [13][14][15][16] and presented in Figure 1. The cost and price of the tractor before and after modification are given in Table 2. The full cost of the improved tractor is 2% higher than the cost of the tractor before modernization, while its price including VAT is 2.3% higher than the price of the existing machine. As shown in Figure 1, to assess the economic viability of the considered tractor improvement, the methods of discounting cash flows and defining the break-even point are applied.
Net present value is defined using the following formula: where , = number of periods, = cash flow, = discount rate. Profitability index is determined as follows: where , = number of periods, = net cash flow in the i-th period, = discount rate, = cash flow at zero point (amount of initial investment). The break-even point is calculated by the formula: where = conditionally fixed costs, = share of conditionally variable costs in the total value of sales. To calculate the financial strength margin, the following formula is used: where = sales. The financial strength index is determined by the formula: It also appears to be necessary to evaluate the benefits of the use of improved tractor by the consumer [17,18]. For this purpose, the indicator of operating costs is applied, the amount of which changes as a result of the implementation of the tractor improvement project. To determine the savings, it is suggested to calculate the reduction in operating costs in the projected case compared to the base one: where = operating costs in the base case, = operating costs in the projected case. In this case, savings arise for the following operating costs: depreciation amount, current costs of repair and maintenance, and fuel expenses.
The depreciation amount is determined by the formula: where = book value of the machine (including transportation costs), = depreciation rate. The current expenses of repair and maintenance of the machine are calculated as follows: where = a factor which takes into account the costs of repair and maintenance of equipment, = a factor which takes into account the productivity increase of the improved machine compared to the existing one. In this case, the tractor productivity does not change, therefore, the factor is equal to 1 in both cases.
Fuel expenses are determined by the formula: where = nominal power output of the engine, = the rate of fuel consumption per 1 hp, = engine capacity use factor, = annual machine operating time, = the price for 1 kg of fuel. In accordance with the suggested method, discounting is also applied to calculate the cumulative effect for the agricultural machine consumer and payback period for additional investments related to the purchase of the improved tractor that is more expensive than the original one. In this case, the discounted savings can be determined as follows: where = annual decrease in operating costs from using the improved machine. The discounted payback period of additional financial investment of the consumer is calculated by the formula: where = amount of additional investment, = number of years of the machine service.

Results
The feasibility assessment of the tractor modernization project for the manufacturer is carried out applying methods frequently used to evaluate investment projects, including cash flow discounting and break-even point estimation. Table 3 shows net present value and profitability index calculated using formulas (1) and (2) for five years of project implementation.
The results of calculations in Table 3 show positive values of net present value and profitability index of the tractor improvement project. According to the forecast, the investments will pay off within the first year of the project implementation, and then accumulation of net profit is observed. The profitability index is 20 times higher than 1, which indicates the potentially high profitability of the solutions under consideration.  Table 4 shows the results of calculating the break-even point and financial sustainability of the project for the first three years of implementation using formulas (3), (4), (5). The calculated financial stability index exceeds the minimum threshold of 30% during the analyzed period, therefore, the project is characterized by sufficient financial stability. Table 5 presents the results of calculating the savings from reducing operating costs for the consumer of the tractor according to formulas (6), (7), (8), (9). Thus, in this case, the annual savings from reducing operating costs amount to 132003 rubles. The discounted savings for the consumer is determined using formula (10) for the tractor service period. The calculation is given in Table 6. The results of calculation show that the purchase of the tractor with the improved engine pre-start system includes additional costs for the consumer in the amount of 162117 rubles (price difference between the basic and modified version of the tractor), however, it will allow to achieve savings as a result of operating costs' reduction in the amount of 132003 rubles per year. In order to consider the factors of the business environment uncertainty and inflation, this amount is discounted, and the cumulative total of discounted savings is determined in the amount of 715538.11 rubles for the period of tractor operation. The payback period of additional investments related to the tractor price difference amounts to 2 years and 4 months. The discounted payback period calculated by formula (11) is equal to 2 years and 9 months. Thus, the results of calculation indicate the potential economic efficiency of the purchase and use of the upgraded tractor for the consumer.

Conclusions
The improved method for feasibility assessment of agricultural machinery modernization projects is developed and tested in the study. The suggested method is based on the analysis of economic efficiency of agricultural machinery improvement both for the manufacturer of such machines, and for their consumer. The benefits for the consumer in the case under consideration are determined by calculating the discounted savings from reducing operating costs in the event of purchasing the improved tractor in comparison with the original one.
The obtained values of the analyzed indicators show sufficient economic viability of the project. Further research in the field of feasibility assessment of agricultural machinery modernization solutions can be aimed at developing various indicators for defining economic effect of such projects for the consumer, depending on the benefits obtained (increased productivity, reduced grain loss, reduced amount of fertilizers used, etc.).