...Introduction: ABC Hospital is a specialized hospital consists of 600+ beds, which has been designated as a trauma center. It provides evidence based emergency, specialized tertiary patient centered care for Dubai and Northern Emirates. The hospital is committed to its values in terms of services by providing its staff respect, empowerment, accountability, safety and transparency. Its manage-ment team is strongly committed to development of a benchmark hospital with a quality learning environment. It has achieved first Joint commission International (JCI) accreditation in 2007 and has been reaccredited in 2010 and 2013. The basic principles of Quality improvement Plan are those underlying all the quality improve-ment processes: a dedication to continuous improvement in the system and processes as well to identify and satisfy the patient’s needs and recognizing that it can be best attained through team work and employee empowerment (Deming,2000). These principles lead the progress and im-plementation of quality improvement plan. The goal of this plan is to attain organization wide exposure to quality fundamentals and to promote quality structure and processes. Quality Improvement Issues. Patient Satisfaction: As the health care environment is very complex and changes frequently (Gilbert, 1992) due to competition among providers giving more importance to the improvement in efforts and reduc-tion in costs, it makes patient satisfactionverychallenging. There are different kind...
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...Activity-Based Costing: A Tool for Manufacturing Excellence ABC is a strategic weaoon in the Quest for comoetitive oosition. By Peter B.B. Turney, Ph.D. This article exammes rne role of actiVity-based costing in the achievement of manufacturing excellence. It describes manufacturing excellence and the product cost information requirements of managers who seek to achieve it. It shows how conventional product costing fails to meet these needs, and demonstrates how activity-based costing corrects these deficiencies. It explains how managers in manufacturing companies can use activitybased costing for strategic, product design, and continuous improvement purposes. Finally, the article lays to rest fears that activity-based costing may be too costly and complex to be compatible with manufacturing excellence. and sustaining a comA chievingadvantage via attention petitive manufacturing excellence requires to all aspects of manufacturing performance. This attention requires that managers have information that helps them choose correct strategies, improve product design, and remove waste from operating activities. Conventional product costing systems provide little information on these sources of competitive advantage. Schrader Bellows found that the product costs generated by their conventional system were so inaccurate they encouraged management to adopt strategies which inhibited the improvement of manufacturing.' Product designers at the Portable Instrument Division of Tektronix...
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...H & R Block is one of the largest and oldest service providers. The company was founded by brothers Henry and Richard Bloch in 1955. The company began franchising in 1956 and they went public in 1962. The company employed over 100,000 tax professionals that are trained both within the U.S. and worldwide. The company has prepared more than 550 million tax returns since the business started in 1955. One key important key to the company success is that they have a retail office within 5 miles of most Americans. You are able to do your taxes both in person and on-line because H & R Block offers these services. The tax-payer can chose to walk into an office and work face-to-face with the tax specialist, they can work totally on their own using the online or packaged do-it-yourself tax prep tools, or they can utilize the do-it-yourself software with unlimited help from and online tax professional. H & R Block will offer you a wide variety of tax consulting services. Straight forward tax return offers the most basic start which is simple. You are able to accomplished this either on-line or in house. H & R Block also offer “drop off” service. A small business service is offered by H & R which includes helping the preparer to navigate the tax requirement of running a business. This is done throughout the year and not just a year-end service. H & R offers a service called “Best of Both”. This is where you get the convenience of doing it online with tax support preparation from...
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...questions to be answered in this chapter. 1. Is activity-based costing (ABC) enough by itself to improve efficiency? Can cost managers ensure that an organization will meet its efficiency goals merely by measuring costs more accurately by using ABC? 2. Does the cost manager’s responsibility end with making recommendations for improvements? Are the numbers generated by ABC, by themselves, enough to guide managers to correct decisions regarding resource use? 3. How does one know that activity-based methods of cost management are worthwhile? B. Learning Objectives — This chapter has six learning objectives. 1. The key steps of an activity-based management system are presented. 2. How to use activity-based costing for target costing. 3. Ways to identify and measure the costs of activities that do or do not add value in organizations. 4. How the elements of an ABM system can help to identify opportunities for process improvements. 5. Evaluate capacity utilization by identifying resources supplied and resources used. 6. Understand the methods and the problems of implementing ABC and ABM. C. Activities-based Management (ABM) allows managers to evaluate costs and values of process activities to identify opportunities for improved efficiency. 1. Activity-based costing (ABC) focuses on (1) understanding how resources are used in current processes and (2)...
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...1999 survey results John Innes*, Falconer Mitchell† and Donald Sinclair* This paper reviews the results of two U.K. surveys of activity-based costing (ABC) in the U.K.’s largest companies. These provide an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in the ABC adoption status of companies over a recent 5-year period. For the ABC users, some comparative information is provided on the nature of the ABC systems in use, their designers, the uses to which they have been put and the levels of success and importance that participants attribute to them. For the non-users, the reasons for their lack of commitment to ABC are explored. c 2000 Academic Press Key words: activity-based costing; perceptions of success; survey. 1. Introduction Activity-based cost/management (ABC)1 has now maintained a high profile status as an important management accounting innovation for well over a decade (Bjornenak and Mitchell, 1999). However, despite a strong and durable advocacy (Cooper, 1988; Cooper and Kaplan, 1991, 1992, 1998; Kaplan, 1992), several reservations have been expressed concerning (a) the substance of its practical attraction (Bjornenak, 1997; Gosselin, 1997; Malmi, 1999), i.e. that it may be a fad or fashion, engendering a bandwagon effect rather than a genuine and useful technical enhancement, (b) its decision-making relevance (Noreen, 1991; Bromwich and Hong, 1999), i.e. that several restrictive (and practically unlikely) conditions must apply before the ABC information...
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...and markets. Activity Based Costing (ABC) attempts to create the big picture, crystal-clear, full, and accurate information in a firm. The following are some of best practices of ABC for a multinational firm: Phase One includes assessment phase that included project planning, team training, development of resource matrices, and coordination with MIS and quality assurance organizations within the company. Phase Two, an analysis phase, includes functional area interviews, identification of the scope of the detailed information needed, identification of activities and activity drivers, and establishment of a timetable for identifying data collection needs. Phase Three, the design phase, involves model building for resources, activities, and cost objects as well as confirming the results. Phase Four includes the implementation of the ABC methodology into the various operations and plants around the world. This included verification and validation of the model results, interfacing with the local MIS system, and institutionalizing a lessons learned approach for correcting and improving the ABC system. ABC is also a tool in the Activity Based Management (ABM) effort of the complete manufacturing process. ABM not only determines product costs more accurately but also determines capital/resource expenditure prioritization, allows better organization redesign, identify areas for cost reduction, pinpoints where efficiency improvement should have the greatest impact, and...
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...Analysis Tools: box and whisker plot, check sheet, control chart, Design of experiments, Histogram, Scatter Diagram, Stratification, and Survey. 5. Idea Creation Tools: Affinity Diagram, Benchmarking, Brainstorming, Nominal Group Technique. 6. Project Planning and Implementation Tool: Gantt Chart, Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle or Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle. 7. Seven New Management and Planning Tools: Affinity Diagram, Relations Diagram, Tree Diagram, Matrix Diagram, Matrix Data Analysis, Arrow Diagram, Process Decision Program Chart. Quality tools & techniques use statistical knowledge to accumulate data and analyze them. It serves diverse range of medical, computing, industrial, telecommunications and defense. These tools drive improvement throughout the organization. Employee has to at all levels has to master the fundamental Quality skills and advanced Quality tools. This is critical to improve the organization process. These tools helps to improve company’s business management, organization’s performance and increase the global recognition of the company so it would be able to compete on both domestic and world market. In most of the small and medium size companies, focus is getting on things done to satisfy...
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...was performed and what was accomplished. They are setup to see if constant improvement is being realized. Measure of activity performance focuses on three major dimensions: Efficiency which concentrates on the relationship of activity inputs to outputs. To improve activity efficiency is to produce the exact activity output with lower cost for the inputs used. Cost and trend then becomes important to measures of efficiency. Quality main concern is doing things correctly the first time it is done. If activity is defective, activity will have to be repeated which causes unnecessary cost and reduction in efficiency. Time required performing an activity which is critical. Longer times means, more intake of information and less ability to respond to customer demands. Time measures of performance are usually nonfinancial. (Palepu, Shank, Knapp, Gibson, Mowen, 2010, p.277) Identify the pros and cons of using an activity-based system over functional-based cost accounting. Functional-based overhead costing has two important stages: overhead costs are assigned to an organizational unit (plant or department), and the other is overhead costs which is assigned to cost objects. Activity-based costing (ABC) traces cost to activities and then to cost objects. The main assumption is that activities consume resources and cost object in turn consume activities. ABC is also a two stage process; however, ABC stresses direct tracing and driver tracing (exploiting cause-and-effect relationship...
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...Regent College Higher Education Assignment front sheet Qualification Pearson BTEC Level 5 HND Diploma Business Student name Unit number and title Unit 15: Managing Business Activities To Achieve Results Assessor name Loganathan Ramasamy Date issued Completion date Submitted on 13/10/2014 30/01/2015 30/01/2015 Assignment title Managing Business Activities To Achieve Results Learning Outcome Learning outcome Understand the importance of business processes in delivering outcomes based upon business goals and objectives Be able to develop plans for own area of responsibility to implement operational plans Assessme nt Criteria 1.1 1.2 1.3 LO1 In this assessment you will have the opportunity to present evidence that shows you are able to: Evaluate the interrelationship between the different processes and functions of the organisation. Justify the methodology to be used to map processes to the organisation’s goals and objectives. Evaluate the output of the process and the quality gateways. Task Evidence no. (Page no) 2.1 2.2 LO2 2.3 2.4 Design plans which promote goals and objectives for own area of responsibility. Write objectives, which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based to align people and other resources in an effective and efficient way. Implement appropriate systems to achieve objectives in the most efficient way, on time, to budget and meeting organisational standards of quality. Carry out work activities meeting the operational...
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...Raytheon to maintain its success, it is imperative for each employee to understand how to manage these accounting aspects. The lack of accounting knowledge and specifically, each unique accounting approach, and how to execute each approach is why there is a huge problem with finances in corporate America today. Many organizations have altered their approach to this issue, but Raytheon has stood the test of difficult economic times because of ethical accounting practices and principles. The development of ethical accounting practices at Raytheon helps to educate their employee’s about these unique accounting practices principles, which enables them to provide excellent customer service to all of their customers throughout the world today. The results of these unique accounting...
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...product quality, processes for the production, and improving workforce. However, many companies are still using the same traditional costing systems, Cooper and Kaplan (1991).The absorption costing paved way due to the lack of visibility for indirect costs so the ABC has been adopted by many organizations rapidly. According to Krajnc et al. (2011), the main difference of ABC to absorption costing lies on how they treat indirect production costs (overheads) and sales. The fundamental goal of ABC is to identify as much as possible direct relationships between products and resources consumed through activities conducted from production to disposal. The ABC system is based on the assumption that the support activities such as activities and sales, the cost of which traditional systems characterized as overheads, offer opportunities for the implementation of activities, and thus are not just for sharing costs. In an absorption costing when the volume of overheads is larger, the likelihood of distortions in reported costs is also greater. In general, overheads that exceed 15 percent of the total cost can cause inaccuracies, Turney (1996). Many companies had major problems by these inaccuracies and so they started using ABC. The traditional approach to cost allocation consists of three steps: Concentration of costs in the productive and non - productive parts. Allocation of the cost of non-productive segments in section production. Distribution of the resulting costs of production...
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...competition during the past 60 years, there has been little innovation in the design and implementation of cost accounting and management control systems." (1) All the practices employed by companies and described in management accounting textbooks had apparently been developed by 1925, despite major changes in the nature and operations of organizations. To develop the field of managerial accounting, Kaplan and others encouraged academics to conduct field research and case studies "to describe and document the innovative practices that seem to work for successful companies." (2) The pendulum swung in the other direction over the next decade as a plethora of new "techniques" in the management accounting area, for example, activity-based costing (ABC), Just-in-Time (JIT), and total quality management (TQM), subsequently found their way into general acceptance. Critics assert, however, that these management accounting techniques overlap and amount to "reinventing the wheel" every few years. (3) The objective here is to assimilate into one framework several factors that...
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...CASE STUDIES IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT A Guide from the Experts TONY ADKINS John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CASE STUDIES IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT CASE STUDIES IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT A Guide from the Experts TONY ADKINS John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2006 by SAS Institute. All rights reserved. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions...
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...(a) Characteristics of an organization contributing to the use of activity based techniques Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a costing methodology used to trace overhead costs directly to cost objects, i.e. products, processes, services, or customers. Costs are assigned to specific activities (e.g. engineering, manufacturing or purchasing) based on their use of resources and costs are assigned to cost objects based on their use of activities. ABC recognizes the causal relationship of cost drivers to activities. ABC techniques enable a business to decide which products, services, and resources are increasing their profitability, and which are contributing to losses. Certain organizations appear to be more successful in implementing ABC than others. ABC helps the managers in these organizations to make the right decisions regarding product mix, pricing, process improvements and product designs. Closer look reveals characteristics of an organization such as structure, product range or environment contributing to these successes. Cost Structure Where overhead costs comprises major portion of product costs as compared to direct costs such as direct labour and direct materials, correctly attributes overhead costs to product is highly important. In modern business, service departments plays a more and more important role than in the past in which production department is mainly responsible for key manufacturing activities. Overall product and service costs are more influenced...
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...The purpose of this report was to analysis costing system at John Deere Component Works (B). Specific objectives were to analyze the reports prepared by William and Vintila and offer recommendations on their suggestion. Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 2. Table of Content ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3 3. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 4. Conclusion & Recommendation ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 5. Discussion 5.1 Product Cost under ABC ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6 5.2 Product Mix has shifted ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6-7 5.3 Assumption about Cost Variability in ABC ………………………………………………………………. 7-8 5.4 Development of ABC ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 5.5 Implementation of ABC …………………………………………………………………………………………. 8-9 5.6 Acceptance of ABC ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 9 5.7 Increasing Lot Size ………………………………………………………………………………………………….9-10 6. References …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….11 Introduction John Deere had been structured to be a captive producer of parts for...
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