Web based cost management tool prototype development using temporal-activity based costing (Temporal-ABC)

The cost management system is a powerful tool for managers to understand manufacturing plant performance. It is essential for any organization to develop a cost management system to estimate the product cost and to account actual cost spent for the product manufacturing. The Activity Based Costing (ABC) system has recently attracted the attention of many companies and is considered to provide better information about the cost pattern and the relationship between resources and activities. However, a survey of earlier research reveals that there are several difficulties to estimate the true product cost due to selection of overhead drivers to activities. To overcome these difficulties Temporal-ABC has been developed by Dr. K.D. Tham. In the first part of the report, costing system implementation issues are studied through real-time case studies. Then, research has been conducted and web-based proptotype application is developed using Temporal-ABC through collaboration with a world-class electronics industry - Celestica Inc. Toronto, Canada. The developed prototype demonstrates the application of Temporal-ABC for cost estimation at Celestica.