No description available.

This study sets out to prove that Activity-Based Management is still a relevant instrument to facilitate effective management decision-making and organisational improvement. In the light of all the latest techniques and methodologies that currently exist to measure and rectify organisational performance, the obvious question might be “but why Activity-Based Management?”. Whilst certain techniques and methodologies concentrate on either inputs, outputs and / or on the entire process, Activity-Based Management was selected because it specifically analyses the activities (transformation component) of a business, plus the fact that this methodology has been refined and tested with great success in large organisations such as Eskom. Given the selection of management tools available, an instrument such as Activity-Based Management is usually not implemented alone, but may be supported by one or more other approaches. For this reason, Activity-Based Management is contrasted with several other popular instruments in the literature review. If properly applied, Activity-Based Management can provide management with a sound decision-making platform for correctly aligning resources and work activities. It produces cost information by linking human resource costs to activities and then tracks these human resource costs (inputs) by activity (transformation) and traces them to the point where products and / or services (outputs) reach their destination / customers (result). It also serves as a useful base to improve strategic and operational decisions and for reviewing and updating the organisation structure of a business. This study reworks and researches previous data related to a project carried out by Eskom (exploratory research) with the purpose of testing the primary research objective. Based on a predetermined dictionary of activities and an associated data collection form, a census was used to collect the data. The resulting reports highlight the main obstructions to effective performance and they mainly relate to an imbalance of time expenditure amongst the various activities performed, an outdated organisation structure and a misalignment of effort with the new vision and strategies formulated. The study is concluded with a number of recommendations for improvement and for further study. Briefly, these recommendations address:  shifting the focus from support to core activities and placing a higher emphasis on activities that support the new vision and strategies of the business;  eliminating unnecessary activities and reducing the amount of time wasted; and  eliminating fragmented work, dealing with surplus manpower numbers and revising the organisation structure. / Prof. H.E.C. de Bruyn

The focus of this study was to determine the impact of activity-based costing (ABC) on organizational performance. ABC can support the strategic management process and provide significant benefit to organizations. Empirical research has provided mixed results of ABC success, which has been the center of controversy since the 1980s. This examination utilized the contingency theory as a theoretical basis for the study. The researcher expected to find that ABC organizations succeed or fail to improve performance due to how well they fit their strategies, structures, and managerial accounting practices to the complex business environment. This study addressed the fundamental question does ABC improve organizational performance? The study found that management accounting practices could only significantly predict organizational performance, as measured by market price, EPS, and asset turnover. The results indicated that ABC organizations have higher asset turnover than non-ABC organizations. However, non-ABC organizations have higher market price and EPS than ABC organizations. The findings indicated no statistically significant differences in operating performance when either ABC or non-ABC accounting practices are used with a low-cost strategy. Finally, the results found no statistically significant differences in operating performance when ABC organizations use a strategy other than a low-cost strategy.

see document / Master of Science

In the contemporary industry, companies need to make investments to grow their business volume. However each investment comes with its own risk. Cost of an equipment does not only consist of the initial payment but also covers the future costs related to the operations, maintenance, quality of production and many other associated issues. Therefore, economical analysis of an asset should be done by considering the whole life cycle. Life-Cycle Costing (LCC) can be used as an engineering tool in order to assess the future business risks and prevent the unexpected costs and losses due to failures and downtime before they occur. When first proposed as a proactive effort, LCC came into the industry with several advantages to be provided. However it could not keep pace with the modern industrial IT development.Automated machine tools constitute a crucial part of modern manufacturing activities. As an asset within the production layout, life-cycle of machine tools consists of several periods which are basically early design, purchase, installation, operation and disposal stages. Unfortunately, lack of a detailed cost analysis method drives most of the manufacturers to follow minimum adequate design (MAD) principle. As described above, decision process of investing in new equipments brings along the old famous debate: “Short-term spending or long-term benefits?”Recent studies have proven the fact that interruptions in production due to failures and maintenance account for a considerable part of not only production profit losses but also overhead costs. Regarding this problem, several new concepts in maintenance such as Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) have been developed. Main goal of these methods is to anticipate the failures which are likely to occur and keep the continuity of production. However, usage of these methods is still at very limited level since industry lacks a dynamic costing method that can justify the initial investment in production equipment assisted by such maintenance techniques. Although they are effective to some extent in calculating direct costs, traditional cost analysis methods usually fail in providing an accurate view on the indirect, consequential and overhead costs. On the other hand, by its2different point of view in handling indirect costs and their future impacts, LCC method can be a possible solution for this investment analysis problem.The objective of this study is to develop an LCC model that can assist the decision making process during the early stages of an investment. A dynamic LCC model which considers the maintenance aspect will be proposed and, as a specific case, this model will be used for estimating and optimizing the life-cycle costs of a CNC machining center based on its real-time technical data history.

No description available.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the effects of activity-based costing (ABC) and activity-based management (ABM) on managerial and employee behavior.

Nas últimas décadas, a humanidade presenciou um grande avanço tecnológico, disponibilizando um aumento expressivo de informações aos gestores empresariais. Por isso, as organizações são impelidas a revisar suas práticas gerenciais que possibilitem sua participação no mercado a cada dia mais competitivo. Esse quadro não é diferente nas organizações hospitalares. O aproveitamento eficiente de seus recursos assume uma importância maior pelo interesse social que os hospitais desempenham em nossa sociedade. Nesse sentido, os custos dos serviços hospitalares merecem destaque, pois eles estão entre os elementos de maior importância para a análise gerencial dessas instituições. Nesse contexto, o Custeio Alvo aparece como uma importante ferramenta de auxílio aos administradores hospitalares no gerenciamento dos custos. Essa ferramenta é aplicável a qualquer organização, mas apresenta resultados mais satisfatórios, quando aplicada em ambientes em que há pressão de preços e de custos. Entretanto, poucos estudos dedicam-se a sua aplicação no setor de serviços. Nesse sentido, este trabalho dedica-se a investigação dos métodos de custeio utilizados no gerenciamento de custos em hospitais na ótica da filosofia do Custeio Alvo. O objetivo é identificar o método de custeio que proporciona mais benefícios ao gerenciamento de seus custos. No entanto, o estudo resume-se a dois métodos: o Custeio Variável e o Custeio Baseado em Atividades. A pesquisa utiliza a metodologia do estudo de caso apoiado em uma unidade hospitalar de pequeno porte, mas de alta complexidade. Utiliza também, em entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os principais administradores para identificar as características do modelo de gestão do hospital, verificar a aderência dessas características a filosofia do Custeio Alvo e identificar as variáveis dos métodos de custeio adotadas pelo hospital. Ao final, a pesquisa conclui que o modelo de gestão do hospital atende aos princípios do Custeio Alvo e que o método que mais benefícios proporciona ao gerenciamento de seus custos, considerando os princípios do Custeio Alvo, é o método do Custeio Variável. / Lately, the humankind has experienced a huge technological advance, which resulted in an expressive rising of information for managers. Consequently, it is not possible for the organizations to revise their management practices responsible for their participation in the competitive market. Such a fact does not change in hospitals. The efficient profit of their resources receives major importance by the social interest those hospitals perform in our society. This way, it is vital to highlight the cost of hospital services, as they are among the most crucial elements for their management analysis. So, the Target Costing comes as an important tool to help hospital managers administrate costs. Such a tool can be applied to any organization. Nevertheless, if applied when there is price and costs pressure, its results can be more satisfying. Therefore, there are not many researches concerning its application in the service sector. Because of that, this piece of work aims at investigating the cost methods that can be used to manage costs in hospitals, based on the Target Costing. In addition, to identify the cost method that generates more benefits to cost management. However, only two methods will be focused: the Variable Costing and the Cost Based on Activities. For this, it was used the methodology of the study of case, regarding a small but complex hospital structure. It is also used in semi-structured interviews with the main managers to identify the characteristics of the hospital management model, to verify if those characteristics adhere to the Target Costing and to identify the variables of the cost methods adopted by the hospital. In the end, it was concluded that the hospital management model attends the Target Costing principles. Furthermore, the Variable Costing is the method that generates more benefits of its costs, when considering the Target Costing.

The thesis is oriented to an alternative approach of allocation of overhead costs which arose in the second half of the nineties of the twentieth century. Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a way of cost control based on looking at costs through activities that are performed in the organization. The following determining of their costs is done based on dividing them into various cost pools with differentiated cost drivers that do not have to be volume based. The thesis is apart from the theoretical study of the topic supplemented by a survey of prevalence of ABC in the Czech Republic and primarily by an analysis of an already created strategic ABC model which is used for studying a degree of compliance of theoretical foundations of the principle with actual methods used in creating the ABC model.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 56-57).