Manufacturing Industry
Alcoa and others blend operational, financial data with performance suite.(ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING)
Manufacturing Business Technology, January, 2006
Is activity-based costing (ABC) set for a comeback? Popularized in the late 1980s by Harvard Business School's Dr. Robert Kaplan, the technique analyzes cost by looking at the activities that drive it, rather than treating cost--as management accounts usually do--as arising independently.
Armed with this information, the theory goes, companies boost profitability by tackling the real causes of cost, rather than its symptoms.
ABC's pizzazz, which has faded a little of late, may be about to return--thanks to efforts to automate integration of financial and operational data.
"Manufacturers want to deal with customers in the most profitable way," says Mark Stevens, a principal with Performance Cost Systems, an Indianapolis-based...
Most Recent Business Articles
- Multiple criteria evaluation and optimization of transportation systems
- Multi-criteria analysis procedure for sustainable mobility evaluation in urban areas
- A two-leveled multi-objective symbiotic evolutionary algorithm for the hub and spoke location problem
- Multi-criteria analysis for evaluating the impacts of intelligent speed adaptation
- The development of Taiwan arterial traffic-adaptive signal control system and its field test: a Taiwan experience
Most Recent Business Publications
Most Popular Business Articles
- 7 tips for effective listening: productive listening does not occur naturally. It requires hard work and practice - Back To Basics - effective listening is a crucial skill for internal auditors
- FAS 109: a primer for non-accountants - Financial Accounting Standards Board's "Statement 109: Accounting for Income Taxes"
- LIFO vs. FIFO: a return to the basics
- Design a commission plan that drives sales - Sales Commissions
- Too Young to Rent a Car? - 25-years-old the minimum age for car renting - Brief Article
