Plant assets definition including break down of areas in the definition. Analyzing the definition of key term often provides more insight about concepts. Plant asset can be defined as: Tangible long-lived assets used to produce or sell products and services; also called property, plant and equipment (PP&E) or fixed assets. Plant assets is another name for property, plant and equipment or fixed assets, plant assets being assets with a longer useful life, assets recorded on the balance sheet as assets at the time of purchase rather than being expense at this time. Plant assets will generally then be depreciated over their useful life, expensing plant assets in the time period they are used in accordance with the matching principle, a process that shows a reader the cost of the plant assets and the estimated accumulated depreciation and book value.