Activity-based Management Research Articles

Bridging the gap between finance and clinical operations with activity-based cost management.

Activity-based cost management (ABCM) is an exciting management tool that links financial information with operations. By determining the costs of specific activities and processes, nurse managers accurately determine true costs of services more accurately than traditional cost accounting methods, and then can target processes for improvement and monitor them for change and improvement. The authors describe the ABCM process applied to nursing management situations.

Activity-based cost management: making it work: a manager's guide to implementing and sustaining an effective ABC system

ABC: your blueprint for success. ability illustrate the effectiveness of ABC to those unfamiliar with financial applications and terminology is a major strength of his book. It should be required reading for companies that need to strengthen their commitment to ABC/ABM. - Dan E. Cowan, Manager, Finance Training and Education, Chrysler Corporation. Activity-based costing is today's superior method for both identifying improvement opportunities and measuring benefits of performance initiatives. Read Gary Cokins' book Activity-Based Cost Management: Making It Work for every answer you need on executing and sustaining an effective ABC management system, explanations on why you should use ABC and explicit, and clear-cut descriptions of steps you must take to implement ABC into your company.

Implementing Activity-Based Management in Daily OperationsBy MillerJohn A., New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. 236 pages, hard cover, $37.95

The article reviews the book “Implementing Activity-Based Management in Daily Operations,” by John A. Miller.

Activity-based management: a tool to complement and quantify continuous quality improvement efforts.

An activity-based cost management system provides a framework to integrate the disciplines of quality and cost management. The integration occurs through the development of performance measures that collectively measure operations with respect to internal and external customers. It is the measurement process that allows management staff to evaluate where they are, determine where they want to be, and set a course of action that closes the gap between the two.

Apport de la simulation à la conception et l'interprétation de tableaux de bord et à la comptabilité de gestion

Une analyse fine des processus de gestion des cheques par un centre de CCP (creation, modification, transformation de comptes, incidents de paiement, reclamations telephoniques, etc.) etayee par une explicitation des gammes operatoires et une analyse des demandes a permis une simulation tres realiste du fonctionnement d’un centre. Cette simulation a servi de base a une reflexion sur la construction d’un tableau de bord, a determiner des grilles de lecture des indicateurs tenant compte de l’impact de l’aleatoire sur le fonctionnement du systeme et a amorcer une reflexion sur la determination rationnelle d’un certain nombre de generateurs de couts, en vue d’une mise au point d’une reflexion prospective sur l’interet et les problemes poses par une comptabilite de gestion par activite.

Activity-based management: today's powerful new tool for controlling costs and creating profits

Readers responsible for continuous cost improvement will learn how to quantify, cost out, and keep track of all the not-so-obvious activities associated with production. Many major companies use the Activity-Based Cost Management technique to improve upon the many different aspects of their business.

Activity-based cost management: A tool for survival

The measurement of processes and costs is necessary to demonstrate quality to the purchasers of home health services. An activity-based cost management (ABCM) system will provide the vehicle to link process cost to payers, product lines, clinical pathways, and agency processes. Use of the output from an ABCM system will facilitate process improvement and the develop ment of organizational efficiency. Key words: activity, cost, efficiency, management

The Impacts of Activity-based Management over Business Management

The Impacts of Activity-based Management over Business Management

Strategy and implementation of an information infrastructure to support contemporary management practices

Total Quality implies an enterprise-wide continuous improvement strategy. Most Batch Process manufacturing companies today, however, lack the information infrastructure that would enable total quality. This paper addresses the technology related issues of implementing a sustainable total quality strategy. We will show through examples how technology can be strategically aligned to the business plan through the logical stages of Vision, Strategy, Planning and Execution. We will also present Models that related information technology to the strategic and tactical aspects of Activity Based Management (ABM) and ISO 9000. These models will show how SP88 is applied to flexible batch and simple batch manufacturing, highlighting architectural and operational differences. We will show that, while SP88 does not dictate implementation, there are definite tradeoffs related to where the functional boundaries are placed between computers and PLCs. A look at current information technologies and trends will offer companies insight toward making future decisions regarding plant floor system components.

Managerial accounting in France Overview of past tradition and current practice

Managerial accounting in France is rooted in two contradictory, yet complement-tary, approaches: (1) a normative cost analysis approach focusing on productcosting for valuation purposes and (2) an ad hoc, physically based, information-for-decision-making approach called the Tableau de Bord. This paper briefly reviews some of the historical origins of these approachesbefore describing them. The cost analysis approach is well codified and has beenjointly defined by businesses and government authorities. It offers a quasi-normativeframework for cost calculation that has been widely accepted and implemented sincethe end of World War 11. Its primary focus, until about fifteen years ago, was thecalculation of product cost and the valuation of inventory. Recent evolutions haveopened the system to cost analysis for decision making. The Tableau de Bordapproach, a managerial ‘instrument panel’ approach to management of the firm, has emerged spontaneously from the needs of manufac-turing engineers and managers. It has evolved over the years (mainly since the early 1960s) from a loosely defined tool into a formally structured instrument with well-defined purpose, content and form The concluding section shows how the evolution of both approaches leads to a synthesis which is very similar to activity-based management and activity-based cost management.

ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING IN THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY: THE SINGAPORE EXPERIENCE

ABSTRACT As part of the Singapore Government's effort to maintain and enhance market competitiveness, it has encouraged local enterprises to follow strategies of expansion, both regionally and on a wider global basis, and to be innovative in manufacturing technology. Organizational lag theory, however, suggests that technical innovations perse will not be sufficient without a concomitant improvement in the administrative systems of organizations, of which the management accounting system is a part (1). Recent new developments in management accounting practices, such as Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and strategic management accounting, as a response to the changed technology, have been widely reported in the overseas literature. ABC, in particular, is seen as providing enterprise managers with information for both strategic and operational decisions on product lines, market segments, customer relationships, and to stimulate process improvement (2) all critical f actors about which local managers and entrepr...

Active Management

Examines how Activity‐based Management (ABM) counters the root causes of the failure of quality initiatives. Claims the failures could be largely mitigated by the additional visibility of the costs and benefits of doing things in a TQ way, provided by the use of activity‐based management techniques. Contends that great care is required in the design of an activity database. Considers the development of activity‐based techniques. Concludes that total quality and activity‐based management are derived from different origins to meet different needs but that they are highly complementary. Contends that together they can make a major contribution to the removal of barriers to success in the implementation of quality improvement initiatives.

An activity-based cost management system

Technological advances in manufacturing industries have changed the processes involved in producing end-products, the elements within the processes, the end-products themselves, and, in turn, the management and control of these processes. Much of what was performed by direct labor is now performed by automated machinery with the aid of computers. Thus, the contribution of direct labor is diminishing while that of indirect labor is steadily increasing. Also, nonvalue-added process activities are being identified and eleminated to streamline processes; products are being designed for manufacturability and maintainability, organizational lines are fading as more work is being performed by cross-functional teams; and management schemes are having to adapt to enable effective control in this new manufacturing environment. Cost and performance information which reflect the actual nature of operations are vital for effective management in these high-tech environments, and information is needed to facilitate continuous process improvement, effective product costing, and proactive cost estemating. such information must be detailed enough to support operational decisions regarding process improvement initiatives. This paper present a model of a computerized cost management information system in such an environment. This system relates cost and performance information to the individual activity level and associates activities with the processes by which goods and services are designed,procured, produced, delivered and supported. In this paper,we also discuss various analysis and design issues associated with the development of this activity-based cost information system.

Activity-Based Management: Past, Present, and Future

ABSTRACT The flood of publications and seminars on activity costing in the last few years suggests that companies suddenly encountered a need for better management accounting information in the 1980s. In fact, management accounting's relevance to most business decision-making deteriorated steadily since the 1950s. However, most companies did not perceive these inadequacies in management accounting until the early 1980s. Current interest in activity management and activity costing reflects the convergence around 1980 of two forces: a long-undetected set of problems in management accounting that seems to originate in the 1950s; and the growth of new competitive pressures in the 1970s that made companies acutely aware of these problems. Although these two forces arose independently, their interaction in the 1970s led to the rise of activity-based management thinking. This paper describes the past, present, and future of activity-based management: past uses of financial accounting information that confounded ...

Activity-based Management of Logistic Costs in a Manufacturing Company: A Case of Increased Visibility of Logistics Costs in a Slovenian Paper Manufacturing Company

Both the transparent reporting of logistics costs and the related accounting of their cost drivers present a significant factor for the successful management of material flows and the related logistics activities in production companies. These costs, which are mainly reported as part of overhead (indirect) costs in such companies, usually remain hidden or are not explicitly visible when the traditional method of accounting is applied. The aim of this research is to create a model of activity-based accounting of logistics costs in a production company, and to test its efficiency in the disclosure of logistics costs compared with traditional cost accounting. The application of the model in a production company shows that an activity-based approach discloses as much as 108% more logistics costs at the level of a group of products than the traditional cost-accounting approach. Further, detailed information on logistics costs obtained in this way enables their more efficient management. Key words: logistics costs; activity-based costing; cost allocation; cost visibility; cost management