عملیاتی کردن هزینه یابی هدف در طول توسعه محصول : مدل و کاربرد
کد مقاله | سال انتشار | تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی |
---|---|---|
2736 | 2009 | 12 صفحه PDF |
Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)
Journal : International Journal of Production Economics, Volume 118, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 398–409
چکیده انگلیسی
Target costing is a widely used technique for cost management during product development (PD). Despite target costing's strategic intuitiveness, its operationalization during PD requires careful decomposition of a product's constituent cost elements. The main objective of this paper is to describe an experience developing early-stage cost parameters for a specific product development process effort at a mid-sized Brazilian manufacturing company by proposing and applying a target costing model. One secondary objective is to provide a model to operationalize “target costing” by breaking down cost targets into product parts, features and common elements, focusing on creating parameters for cost control during PD. Using a detailed case study, target costing is explicitly decomposed in four different stages in a PD environment. All these are intended as a complement to the strategic use of target costing.
مقدمه انگلیسی
Product development (PD) is a core factor in competitive advantage and effective early-stage cost management techniques, during the product development process (PDP), are increasingly sought after by many industries. Horngren et al. (1997) and Tornberg et al. (2002) have established that most of the product costs are determined in the early stages of product's life-cycle. There is also an evolving literature to identify and manage the specific economic factors that are important during the PDP (Andreasen and Hein, 1987; Cooper, 1990; Crawford and Benedetto, 2006; Dickson, 1997; Kotler, 2003; Pahl and Beitz, 1995; Prasad, 1996). Target costing is a technique for economic management, particularly cost management, during PD (Filomena et al., 2005). The use of the target costing during PD is supported by the surveys of Dekker and Smidt (2003) and Tani et al. (1994) which show that the PD and design departments are major users of target costing. Furthermore, Afonso et al. (2008) present a survey in which target costing has a positive impact in new PD. Cooper and Slagmulder (1999) define target costing as a technique to manage future profits in the organization. The target costing begins with the target price, which is in general determined by market research or observation. A desired per unit profit is then simply subtracted from the target price to obtain the target cost (Cooper and Chew, 1996; Monden, 1995), as it is presented in Eq. (1). equation(1) View the MathML sourceTargetcost=Targetprice-Profit Turn MathJax on The concept of target costing seems to be closely related to studies conducted in Japanese companies and/or by Japanese researchers (Cooper and Yoshikawa, 1994; Kato, 1993; Tani et al., 1994; Tani, 1995). Target costing apparently emerged as a cost management technique used by Japanese management accountants to enable better decision-making during the PDP and to stimulate employees to follow long-term strategic policies (Gagne and Discenza, 1995). Its evolution as a strategic concept has been described by Everaert and Bruggeman (2002). However, practical applications of cost and profitability control during the PDP require detailed and available product cost information. Furthermore, despite the target costing strategic intuitiveness, its operationalization during early-stage product life-cycle decision making requires careful decomposition of a product's cost constituent elements. Terms such as “features,” “characteristics,” “parts,” “functions,” and “elements” can become inherently context-specific and overlapping depending on the type of product, the product family genealogy, geometric and functional complexity and other factors. These issues are discussed in this study. The main objective of this paper is to describe an experience developing early-stage cost parameters for a specific PDP effort at a mid-sized Brazilian manufacturing company by proposing and applying a target costing model. One secondary objective is to provide a model to operationalize target costing by breaking down cost targets into product parts, features and common elements, focusing on creating parameters for cost control during PD. Using a detailed case study, the target costing is explicitly decomposed in four different stages in a PD environment. All these are intended as a complement to the strategic use of “target costing”. This model is limited to the creation of product cost parameters. As a complement to this model, the development team must estimate product costs during the evolution of PDP and then the estimated product cost can be compared with the beforehand generated cost parameters (proposed in this model). As an example, at the end of the case study some estimated costs for the proposed features are presented. When the estimated costs exceed the cost parameters, the development team knows that some action must be taken to decrease product's cost. Cooper and Slagmulder (1997), Ansari et al. (1997) and Yoshikawa et al. (1994) point out value engineering as one technique to reduce costs. This paper is structured in three main sections. In the first one, concepts of product parts, features and common elements are standardized. In the second, a model that can be used to break down product target cost during PD is presented. Then the model is applied to the development of a new family of seats products in a Brazilian bus body automotive manufacturing company. Some other justifications for this study are presented on 2 and 3.
نتیجه گیری انگلیسی
This paper presented an experience developing early-stage cost parameters for a specific PDP effort at a mid-sized Brazilian manufacturing company by proposing and applying a target costing model. A model accompanied by a detailed case study was developed. This gives some perspectives to the international academic community on the use of target costing in some emerging markets. For instance, in the extensive target costing review presented by Ansari et al. (2007), the great majority of the applications were focused in Japan, US and Europe. It also provided a model to operationalize target costing by breaking down cost targets into product parts, features and common elements, focusing on creating parameters for cost control during PD. This was not just a semantics discussion. It was also a tentative approach to integrate the target and feature costing literature. This detailed decomposition also enables teams involved in PD to have more accurate cost control, in particular engineers and designers. The separation of the target costing into four different stages and the definition of its inputs and outputs is another contribution to the target costing literature applied to PD. In summary, the model started with the definition of the product parts, feature and common elements. In stage two, the demand forecast, project budget target cost and target cost UDC were obtained. Stage 3 began with the product target price and profit definition and finished with the target cost PRO. Stage 4 began with the target cost INS, followed by the target cost IBP and target cost IBF. A limitation of this study was lack of discussion of specific cost estimation and cost reduction techniques; it was just focused on the creation of cost parameters to be used as a control. Another limitation was the use of simple deterministic point values. Cost data and market data, in general, carries uncertainty, so the use of techniques of risk modeling, for example, Monte Carlo simulation, could help to improve it. The model was tested in a not very innovative product. Thus it might need some changes in other environments. As future research, applications of this model to a larger variety of products could be done, for instance, products with higher degrees of innovation. The integration of the product development's cost management activities with the company's cost management system should also be accomplished. What the implications are to the PD team when differences between the target cost parameters and the estimated costs happen is one opportunity. Ansari et al. (2007) points out that the decomposition of product-level price into customers’ needs is another opportunity. This model might help to fulfill this gap. Ax et al. (2008) raised some questions about the relations between perceived environmental uncertainty and target costing adoption. Thus, the inclusion of uncertainty in the presented model could make its use more appropriate for less predictable environments.