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The purpose of this paper is to provide a service‐costing framework for logistics companies that are providing land transportation via trucks.

Several costing methodologies are combined around activity‐based costing and process modeling and a framework is developed. The developed framework is applied to a logistics company to track its service costs.

After the case study is completed, it is concluded that the proposed framework can be very useful for the company in determining their true service costs. Moreover, the service costs of the company become more apparent to them. Results of the costing information were also found very useful to initiate effective process improvement plans.

In order to execute the model effectively companies need to keep a record of the relevant costing data systematically, otherwise it is not possible to get satisfactory results.

One of the main difficulties for land transportation companies is to determine and evaluate the true costs of their operations. The proposed framework and case study can be useful for companies in developing their costing systems.

The proposed framework presents how different costing approaches can be integrated to provide effective costing solutions. In the literature it is not possible to find many case studies for the application of modern costing approaches for logistics companies. The present paper fills a gap in the literature by presenting a case study for costing logistics services via modern costing approaches.

Develops a continuum of product costing systems (PCSs) and demonstrates its application to making managerial decisions. Explains the relevance of this structure to managerial issues including inventory control, pricing, special decisions and product design. Synthesizes various PCSs into a coherent structure and introduces new PCSs such as direct costing and super direct costing (which are different from the classic variable costing and super variable costing) systems. Explains how the continuous nature of issues facing management needs a matching continuum of an endless number of PCSs.

One of the most important aspects of managerial accounting is the accumulation of costs in the manufacturing process. This data is of value to the manager owing to the information it provides him for planning, control, and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to describe the different costing systems, compare them, and show how they affect the accumulation of costs for product costing, as well as decision making.

This paper examines how target costing decisions can be impacted by product and production interdependencies.

Numerical examples are used to investigate the effect that product and production interdependencies have on target costing decisions. Mixed integer programming and simulation are used to model the interrelationships between a product’s cost reduction effort and related decisions such as product mix, pricing, and capacity acquisition. Product and production interdependencies are introduced by evaluating a product with multiple price and demand options, capacity is acquired in large discrete quantities, and resources have economies of scale. Analyses of choices made with and without considering product and production interdependencies are used to evaluate their effects on target costing decisions.

A product’s cost reduction effort cannot be determined independently of other production-related choices, such as product mix, capacity, and price, in the presence of product and production interdependencies.

The findings of this paper underscore the need for additional research to understand the conditions that impair target costing decisions and the economic consequences of suboptimal decisions.

Rather than assessing target costing decisions at the individual product level, these decisions must be evaluated at the portfolio level of the firm’s operations.

Suboptimal target costing decisions impact the products and product mix that the firm chooses to offer, which affects the ability of organizations to effectively achieve their strategic goals.

This paper identifies new limitations to target costing that can help managers understand the technique better and lead to improved target costing decisions.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

Since quality cannot be manufactured or tested into a product but must be designed in, effective product design is a prerequisite for effective manufacturing. However, the concept of effective product design involves a number of complexities. First, product design often overlaps with such design types as engineering design, industrial design and assembly design. Second, while costs are key variables in product design, costing issues often arise that add more complexities to this concept.

The management accounting literature provides activity-based costing (ABC) and target costing techniques to assist product design teams. However, when applied to product design these techniques are often flawed. First, the product “user” and “consumer” are not identical as often assumed in target costing projects, and instead of activities driving up the costs, managers may use budgeted costs to create activities to augment their managerial power by bigger budgets and to protect their subordinates from being laid off. Second, each of the two techniques has a limited costing focus, activity-based costing (ABC) focusing on indirect costs and target costing on unit-level costs. Third, neither technique accounts for resource interactions and cost associations.

This paper applies the new method of associative costing (Bayou & Reinstein, 2000) that does not contain these limitations. To simplify the intricate procedures of this method, the paper outlines and illustrates nine steps and applies them to a hypothetical scenario, a design of a laptop computer intended for the college-student market. This method uses the well-known statistical techniques of clustering, Full Factorial design and analysis-of-variance. It concludes that in product design programs, the design team may need to make tradeoff decisions on a continuum beginning with the design-to-cost point and ending at the cost-to-design extreme, as when the best perceived design and the acceptable cost level of this design are incongruent.

For firms using target costing, separating decision management from decision control helps to minimize the agency costs incurred throughout a product's economic life. Prior literature focuses on decision-management issues related to target costing, such as new product development (i.e., initiation) and production (i.e., implementation). In contrast, this article highlights the decision control aspects of target costing, which consist of ratifying product proposals and monitoring the product's implementation. While products initiated with target costing are chosen because they meet their allowable cost, product ratification requires assessing how well products contribute toward strategic goals, such as improving the firm's market value. To facilitate the ratification decision, this article develops an equation for determining a product's net present value (NPV) based on the same accounting data used during the initiation process. The article also describes monitoring a product's implementation through periodic comparisons to flexible budgets and a post-audit review at the end of the product's economic life.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

This chapter proposes a contingency model that examines the most relevant contingent variables for understanding the factors that explain innovative costing techniques in a sample of firms investing in advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT firms). Furthermore, the aim of this study was also to ascertain whether AMT firms use significantly innovative managerial practices (IMPs).

The chapter uses material from a survey investigation and interviews with financial directors and the survey was conducted using a sample of AMT firms selected from an Italian industry. The method differs from previous studies in that it considers the relationship between a relevant contingency variable of AMT firms (i.e. the levels of integration, but also environmental uncertainty and size) and various innovative costing, a relationship that has not been previously explored. The research was developed from the relevant literature.

The results indicate that there is no association between innovative costing and AMT firms in general, however the findings show that activity-based costing (ABC) is positively associated with fully integrated AMT firms. Large AMT firms have the highest percentage of innovative costing usage, such as ABC and strategic costing (SC). The relationship between AMT firms that perceive a high degree of environmental uncertainty and innovative costing was supported by the data in case of strategic dimension (target costing (TC) and life cycle costing (LCC)). Expectations of a relationship between AMT firms and IMPs, such as just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM) and activity-based management (ABM), were not supported by the data.

We recognise that specific research limitations might reduce their generalisation, especially the number of statistical observations.