TARGET COSTING:

Delighting Your Customers While Making a Profit

Target Costing is a simple, straightforward process that can have significant impact on the health and profitability of many, if not most, businesses.  It doesn't require an army of specialists, large-scale software implementations, or complex management structures and procedures.  It's mostly logical, disciplined common sense that can be imbedded into a company's existing procedures and processes.

We spent our recent professional careers applying Target Costing to a wide range of products, processes and procedures in a large manufacturing company.  We quickly came to learn that Target Costing helps to:

assure that products are better matched to their customer's needs. align the costs of features with customers’ willingness to pay for them.

reduce the development cycle of a product.

reduce the costs of products significantly.

increase the teamwork among all internal organizations associated with conceiving, marketing, planning, developing, manufacturing, selling, distributing and installing a product.

engage customers and suppliers to design the right product and to more effectively integrate the entire supply chain.

Target Costing has been shown to consistently reduce product costs by up to 20-40%, depending on the product and market circumstances. 

What is Target Costing?  Our working definition, adapted from Cooper, is as follows:

Target Costing is a disciplined process

   for determining and realizing a total cost

    at which a proposed product with specified

       functionality must be produced

         to generate the desired profitability

            at its anticipated selling price in the future.

 

Target Costing is a disciplined process that uses data and information in a logical series of steps to determine and achieve a target cost for the product.  In addition, the price and cost are for specified product functionality, which is determined from understanding the needs of the customer and the willingness of the customer to pay for each function.

Another interesting aspect of Target Costing is its inherent recognition that there are important variables in the process that are essentially beyond the control of the design group or even the company.  For example, the selling price is determined by the marketplace -- the global collection of customers, competitors and the general economic conditions at the time the product is being sold.  The desired profit is another variable that is beyond the control of the design organization.  It may be set at the corporate level.  It is influenced by the expectation of the stockholders and the financial markets.  And, the desired profit is benchmarked against others in the same industry and against all businesses.  In this complicated environment, it is the role of Target Costing to balance these external variables and help develop a product at a cost that is within the constraints imposed.  In short, traditional approaches, such as simple “cost-plus” is a recipe for market failure, and giving the customers more than they are willing to pay for is a recipe for insolvency.

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As a totally new product and its industry develops, it starts to compete based on its new technology, concept, and/or service. Competitors emerge and the basis for competition evolves to other areas such as cycle time, quality, or reliability. As an industry becomes mature, the basis of competition typically moves to price. Profit margins shrink. Companies begin focusing on cost reduction. However, the cost structure for existing products is largely locked in and cost reduction activities have limited impact. As companies begin to realize that the majority of a product's costs are committed based on decisions made during the development of a product, the focus shifts to actions that can be taken during the product development phase.

Until recently, engineers have focused on satisfying a customer's requirements. Most development personnel have viewed a product's cost as a dependent variable that is the result of the decisions made about products functions, features and performance capabilities. Because a product's costs are often not assessed until later in the development cycle, it is common for product costs to be higher than desired. This process is represented in Figure 1.

Target costing represents a fundamentally different approach. It is based on three premises: 1.) orienting products to customer affordability or market-driven pricing, 2.) treating product cost as an independent variable during the definition of a product's requirements, and 3.) proactively working to achieve target cost during product and process development. This target costing approach is represented in Figure 2.

Target costing builds upon a design-to-cost (DTC) approach with the focus on market-driven target prices as a basis for establishing target costs. The target costing concept is similar to the cost as an independent variable (CAIV) approach used by the U.S. Department of Defense and to the price-to-win philosophy used by a number of companies pursuing contracts involving development under contract.

The following ten steps are required to install a comprehensive target costing approach within an organization.

1. Re-orient culture and attitudes. The first and most challenging step is re-orient thinking toward market-driven pricing and prioritized customer needs rather than just technical requirements as a basis for product development. This is a fundamental change from the attitude in most organizations where cost is the result of the design rather than the influencer of the design and that pricing is derived from building up a estimate of the cost of manufacturing a product.

2. Establish a market-driven target price. A target price needs to be established based upon market factors such as the company position in the market place (market share), business and market penetration strategy, competition and competitive price response, targeted market niche or price point, and elasticity of demand. If the company is responding to a request for proposal/quotation, the target price is based on analysis of the price to win considering customer affordability and competitive analysis.

3. Determine the target cost. Once the target price is established, a worksheet (see example below) is used to calculate the target cost by subtracting the standard profit margin, warranty reserves, and any uncontrollable corporate allocations. If a bid includes non-recurring development costs, these are also subtracted. The target cost is allocated down to lower level assemblies of subsystems in a manner consistent with the structure of teams or individual designer responsibilities.

4. Balance target cost with requirements. Before the target cost is finalized, it must be considered in conjunction with product requirements. The greatest opportunity to control a product's costs is through proper setting of requirements or specifications. This requires a careful understanding of the voice of the customer, use of conjoint analysis to understand the value that customers place on particular product capabilities, and use of techniques such as quality function deployment to help make these tradeoff's among various product requirements including target cost.

5. Establish a target costing process and a team-based organization. A well-defined process is required that integrates activities and tasks to support to support target costing. This process needs to be based on early and proactive consideration of target costs and incorporate tools and methodologies described subsequently. Further, a team-based organization is required that integrates essential disciplines such as marketing, engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, and finance. Responsibilities to support target costing need to be clearly defined.

6. Brainstorm and analyze alternatives. The second most significant opportunity to achieve cost reduction is through consideration of multiple concept and design alternatives for both the product and its manufacturing and support processes at each stage of the development cycle. These opportunities can be achieved when there is out-of-the-box or creative consideration of alternatives coupled with structured analysis and decision-making methods.

7. Establish product cost models to support decision-making. Product cost models and cost tables provide the tools to evaluate the implications of concept and design alternatives. In the early stages of development, these models are based on parametric estimating or analogy techniques. Further on in the development cycle as the product and process become more defined, these models are based on industrial engineering or bottom-up estimating techniques. The models need to be comprehensive to address all of the proposed materials, fabrication processes, and assembly process and need to be validated to insure reasonable accuracy. A target cost worksheet can be used to capture the various elements of product cost, compare alternatives, as well as track changing estimates against target cost over the development cycle.

8. Use tools to reduce costs. Use of tools and methodologies related to design for manufacturability and assembly, design for inspection and test, modularity and part standardization, and value analysis or function analysis. These methodologies will consist of guidelines, databases, training, procedures, and supporting analytic tools.

9. Reduce indirect cost application. Since a significant portion of a product's costs (typically 30-50%) are indirect, these costs must also be addressed. The enterprise must examine these costs, re-engineer indirect business processes, and minimize non-value-added costs. But in addition to these steps, development personnel generally lack an understanding of the relationship of these costs to the product and process design decisions that they make. Use of activity-based costing and an understanding of the organization's cost drivers can provide a basis for understanding how design decisions impact indirect costs and, as a result, allow their avoidance.

10. Measure results and maintain management focus. Current estimated costs need to be tracked against target cost throughout development and the rate of closure monitored. Management needs to focus attention of target cost achievement during design reviews and phase-gate reviews to communicate the importance of target costing to the organization

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Meeting customer affordability requirements is critical to a successful product. Since typically 80% of product costs are committed based a decisions during concept development, target costing is key to a successful product. The concepts of target costing that form the basis for our consulting process are described in a paper titled, Achieving Target Cost / Design-to-Cost Objectives. DRM Associates, a leading consulting organization specializing in product development, can help with the following eight-step approach:

1. Initiation of a Target Costing program begins with management understanding and commitment. These objectives must then be communicated to the rest of the organization. Our Target Costing training can provide an understanding of the concepts and essential elements of a Target Costing approach. We can help in establishing metrics and determining baseline performance.

2. A team-based organization needs to be established to support development. We can help define roles and responsibilities to support Target Costing and provide Team-Building training or Team Launch training as required. We can work with the team to facilitate their use of Target Costing practices.

3. A Target Costing process needs to be defined and established. We can review the current development process and define the changes and additional activities to establish a Target Costing Process. We can then develop and conduct training to deploy this process to the organization.

4. Target costs must be established based on analyzing market niches, assessing customer affordability requirements, understanding cost drivers, considering trade-offs in costs vs. other requirements, determining elasticity of demand, and analyzing volume-cost relationships. We can help organize the data gathering, guide this analysis, and facilitate the use of tools such as quality function deployment to support requirement trades.

5. Product cost models and/or cost tables are required to evaluate concept and design alternatives and support decision-making. Parametric cost models are needed in the early stages of a development program to develop a proposal or establish a business case, to support analysis of concept alternatives, and perform trade studies. More detailed cost models based on analogy or industrial engineering build-up are needed in the later stages to evaluate product and process design alternatives. We can help in selecting, building, validating and establishing these cost models and cost tables and define a process for their use.

6. Value analysis and design for manufacturability are two primary methods to provide focus on functions of value to the customer, the associated costs, and the DFM principles to reduce costs. We can provide value analysis training and design for manufacturability training, help establish DFM guidelines, define a process for the application of value analysis and DFM, and facilitate the use of these practices on a development project.

7. Supplier involvement in a Target Costing program is critical since typically 50-70% of product costs are materials. We can work with the materials organization to help structure a supplier involvement program based on Target Costing, provide Target Costing training to suppliers, work with key suppliers to establish a Target Costing program, and develop pricing programs.

8. Indirect costs are the second most significant cost element. We can assist with business process reengineering indirect activities, eliminate non-value-added activities, and establish an activity-based costing system to better support decision-making.

9. Monitoring of Target Costing results is key to a successful program. We can help establish Target Costing tracking systems, develop design review guidelines, and insure appropriate management focus to a Target Costing program.

10. http://www.npd-solutions.com/targetcons.html

ACHIEVING TARGET COSTS/ DESIGN TO COST OBJECTIVES

INTRODUCTION

A competitive product must address factors such as cost, performance, aesthetics, schedule or time-to-market, and quality. The importance of these factors will vary from product to product and market to market. And , over time, customers or users of a product will demand more and more, e.g., more performance at less cost.

Cost will become a more important factor in the acquisition of a product in two situations. First, as the technology or aesthetics of a product matures or stabilizes and the competitive playing field levels, competition is increasingly based on cost or price. Second, a customer's internal economics or financial resource limitations may shift the acquisition decision toward affordability as a more dominant factor. In either case, a successful product supplier must focus more attention on managing product cost.

The management of product cost begins with the conception of a new product. A large percentage of the product's ultimate acquisition or life cycle costs, typically seventy to eighty percent, is determined by decisions made from conception through product development cycle. Once the design of the product has been established, relatively little latitude exists to reduce the cost of a product. Decisions made after the product moves into production account for another ten to fifteen percent of the product's costs. Similarly, decisions made about general and administrative, sales and marketing, and product distribution activities and policies account for another ten to fifteen percent of the product's cost.

When a company faces a profitability problem and undertakes a cost reduction program, it will typically reduce research and development expenditures and focus on post-development activities such as production, sales, and general and administrative expenditures. While not suggesting that these are inappropriate steps to take, the problem is that it is too late and too little. Most of the cost structure in a company has been locked into place with the design decisions made about the company's products. A cost reduction or profitability program has to start with the design of the company's products at the very beginning of the development cycle.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The following definition of terms will provide a common basis for discussion:

Recurring production cost = production labor + direct materials + process costs + overhead + outside processing

Non-recurring costs = development costs + tooling

Product costs = Recurring production costs + allocated non-recurring costs

Product price or acquisition costs = Product costs + selling, general & administrative + warranty costs + profit

Life cycle costs = Acquisition costs + other related capital costs + training costs + operating costs + support costs + disposal costs

TRADITIONAL APPROACH

In many companies, product cost or life cycle cost considerations are an afterthought. Costs are tallied up and used as the basis for determining the product's price. The primary focus is on product performance, aesthetics, or technology. Companies may get by with this approach in some markets and with some products in the short term, but ultimately competition will catch up and the product will no longer be competitive.

In other companies, cost is a more important factor, but this emphasis is not acted upon until late in the development cycle. Projected costs of production are estimated based on drawings and accumulated from quotes and manufacturing estimates. If these projected costs are too high relative to competitive conditions or customers requirements, design changes are made to varying degrees to reduce costs. This may occur before or after the product has been released to production. The result is extended development cycles and added development cost with these design iterations.

In some organizations, development costs receive relatively little attention as well. There may not be a rigorous planning and budgeting process for development projects. Budgets are established without buy-in from development personnel resulting in budget overruns.

DESIGN TO COST

Effective product cost management requires a design to cost philosophy as its basis since a substantial portion of the product's cost is dictated by decisions regarding its design. Design to cost is a management strategy and supporting methodologies to achieve an affordable product by treating target cost as an independent design parameter that needs to be achieved during the development of a product. A design to cost approach consists of the following elements:

An understanding of customer affordability or competitive pricing requirements by the key participants in the development process;

Establishment and allocation of target costs down to a level of the hardware where costs can be effectively managed;

Commitment by development personnel to development budgets and target costs; Stability and management of requirements to balance requirements with affordability and

to avoid creeping elegance; An understanding of the product's cost drivers and consideration of cost drivers in

establishing product specifications and in focusing attention on cost reduction; Product cost models and life cycle cost models to project costs early in the development

cycle to support decision-making; Active consideration of costs during development as an important design parameter

appropriately weighted with other decision parameters;

Creative exploration of concept and design alternatives as a basis for developing lower cost design approaches;

Access to cost data to support this process and empower development team members; Use of value analysis / function analysis and its derivatives (e.g., function analysis

system technique) to understand essential product functions and to identify functions with a high cost to function ratio for further cost reduction;

Application of design for manufacturability principles as a key cost reduction tactic; Meaningful cost accounting systems using cost techniques such as activity-based costing

(ABC) to provide improved cost data; Consistency of accounting methods between cost systems and product cost models as

well as periodic validation of product cost models; and Continuous improvement through value engineering to improve product value over the

longer term.

TARGET COSTING AS A FOUNDATION

Executive management, marketing, program/product managers, and development team personnel all need to have an understanding of customer affordability constraints or competitive market place requirements. Everyday customers buy products with functions, features and performance in excess of their needs and wonder how much is money is wasted on these unneeded capabilities. A keener awareness of design to cost requirements is needed. This happens when product development team members and executive management have direct contact with customers to understand their true needs and hear their sensitivity to costs directly, or when they are exposed to competitor's product pricing in the market place.

Based on this awareness of customer affordability or design to cost requirements, cost targets should be formally established. These targets should be developed based on pricing formulas and strategies and consideration of price elasticity. Prices and target costs will also have to consider projected production volumes and amortization of non-recurring development costs. In a more complex product or system, the top-level target cost will need to be allocated to lower level subsystems or modules. This will establish a measurable objective for a product development team where multiple teams are involved in a development project.

In an environment where development cost is significant relative to total recurring production costs, more attention will need to be paid to managing these non-recurring development costs. Non-recurring development cost will be a function of the extent of new product and process technology and the extent of use of new materials, parts and subsystems. If product is an evolutionary step with minimal development risk, non-recurring development costs will be lower. The use of standard parts and modules from other existing products will also lower non-recurring development costs. This suggests a strategy of not letting product and process technology application get too far ahead of customer affordability requirements.

Product development team members should buy-in to or commit to these product cost targets and development budgets to improve the chances of meeting these objectives. When empowered product development teams actually develop these budgets and targets, a sense of commitment to these budgets or targets develops. If the budgets or targets are

established by someone outside the product development team (e.g., by a product or program manager, a management team, a system integration team, or a project engineer), the targets and budgets should be carefully reviewed with the team members to insure they understand these cost objectives and the assumptions behind them. While competition will generally dictate that stretch goals be established, these goals should be accepted by the team as achievable.

COST MODELS AND COST DATA

Once a team has a set of requirements and a cost target established, they will begin exploring alternatives as part of the design process. In the absence of other information, they will tend to evaluate a product concept primarily based on its performance merits and, at best, secondarily consider a subjective estimate of the relative costs of the design alternatives. Ad-hoc cost studies or trade studies may be prepared for significant issues, but tools to regularly support this process are lacking. Tools and information need to be provided to a product development team so that they can more proactively and objectively consider the cost implications of various design approaches on a regular basis. A product cost model or life cycle cost model provides an objective basis for evaluating design alternatives from a very early stage in the development cycle.

As the organization proceeds through the design of both product and process, the product cost model is used to project and accumulate product costs to use as a factor in evaluating design alternatives and to refine the design to meet cost targets. If it is determined after extensive evaluation that the product requirements cannot be achieved at the target cost, the requirements and targets will need to be re-evaluated and modified.

Early in the development cycle, the product cost model will be based primarily on characteristics of the product design with relatively little consideration of the actual manufacturing process. The model will be driven by general design parameters, product/part characteristics, and critical parameter tolerances. The model will be implicitly based on assumptions about existing processes and process relationships to types of materials, sizes and tolerance requirements.

Later in the development cycle, a different type of product cost model will be used that will consider the specific manufacturing processes. This type of model will be built around existing processes where relatively good historical cost data should exist. On occasion, new manufacturing processes will need to be considered. Data will need to be gathered as a basis for creating or extending the product cost model for the new process(es). Information to support this model development can be obtained from equipment suppliers, other users of this manufacturing process, facility engineers, and manufacturing engineers.

Cost data will also need to be obtained for many purchased parts and sub-assemblies. This information may be available in the form of catalog prices or supplier quotations. However, to support cost projections much earlier in the development cycle, a close working relationship with the company's supplier base will allow preliminary cost

projections to be obtained without the formalized commitment of a quotation. The supplier relationship and company information needs may even develop to the point that the company works with the supplier to develop a supplier cost model based on the supplier's process capabilities.

A company's initial attempt with a product cost model may utilize a spreadsheet program or a bill of material cost roll-up capability. The focus is on accumulating and tracking estimated material, part and assembly costs. This summarization capability may start with cost estimates and update the estimates with quoted prices or catalog prices for purchased items or manufacturing's estimates based on preliminary drawings for fabricated items and assemblies.

Over time, a more sophisticated product cost model should be developed that will project costs based on the characteristics of parts and the overall product design. This type of cost model might be based on commercially available design for manufacturability (DFM) or design for assembly (DFA) software packages. These systems typically generate an estimate of fabrication or assembly labor time and costs or machine cycle time. and costs as part of their capabilities. In addition, there are commercially available cost models that allow a company to develop a custom model of their manufacturing processes and project even more exacting cost estimates based on their product or part characteristics. These individual packages or modules will be oriented toward a limited part or product domain, e.g., manual or automated assembly, printed circuit boards, sheet metal, injection molding, casting, etc. Multiple modules will typically be needed to support overall product cost modeling. In addition, a database reporting capability or spreadsheet will be needed to accumulate the many individual elements of cost from these various cost modeling system components so that effective overall trade-off's can be made.

Over the course of the development cycle, several different costing tools may be used by an organization. In the early stages of product development, an estimating system may be used to respond to a customer request for quotation or request for proposal or to develop an internal estimate to prepare a cost justification for the development project to management. This cost model would be based on parametric or analogy techniques. Parametric techniques would take general characteristics about the product such as size, weight, number of functions, etc., and use these parameters to develop a general cost estimate. Analogy techniques would take a similar product's cost and use a "same as except for" approach to develop a cost estimate based on the cost of an existing item.

As the development cycle moves into the product design phase, cost models and DFM/DFA tools as just described would be used. These estimates would be more refined since more is known about the design of the product and its cost drivers. Once the product design is essentially complete, tools and methods such as computer-aided and manual process planning and tools to support the development of labor standards would be used to develop even more refined cost estimates. Finally, as the product moves into production, cost accounting systems would collect costs by product, assembly, part, and operation. These costing tools are illustrated below.

These costing tools should have a consistent basis for accounting for costs and a consistent set of rates. In addition, the organization should establish procedures to periodically validate the cost models by comparing the projected costs with actual costs and adjusting parameters in the model to yield projections closer to actual experience.

In some cases, life cycle costs may need to be considered as the basis for making design decisions. This will add to the complexity of a cost model. Data will need to be gathered on operating costs (e.g., facilities, training, manpower, fuel or energy consumption, etc.), maintenance costs, and disposal costs. While these costs can be modeled, historical data related to operations, reliability and maintenance often is needed. This means that a customer will need to provide this data or that the company have close working relationships with customers where this data is routinely gathered.

To support the operation of these cost models, cost data will need to be readily accessed. Some companies try to restrict access to cost data to prevent this information leaking out to competitors. This restricted access undermines a design to cost methodology and empowerment of the product development teams. This data needs to be made available to support cost modeling. Typical data required will be labor rates, overhead rates, learning curves, efficiencies, historical and projected parts costs, and escalation projections for labor and materials.

Traditional approaches to allocating overhead or burden costs generally based on direct labor. However, direct labor is becoming an insignificant cost component in many products. Further, there is frequently a lack of understanding of sunk costs and fixed versus variable indirect costs. All of this has led to distortion of overhead cost allocations and inappropriate design and sourcing decisions. As companies move toward activity-based costing, the quality of the cost data will improve. Costs will be more closely based on the consumption of resources and the aberrations associated with allocating indirect costs will diminish.

DECISION-MAKING

In the absence of product cost models and product development teams, each functional organization will make decisions from their own perspective, trying to manage the elements of cost that they are responsible for. For example, decisions to minimize non-recurring design engineering expenditures may result in a less producible product, driving up material and labor costs in manufacturing. Decisions to minimize tooling capital expenditures may also have the same effect in manufacturing costs. Test engineering may

try to minimize its non-recurring development budgets and capital expenditures resulting in a less automated test process and higher recurring test costs for production verification.

Product development teams provide the organizational mechanism to bring the various disciplines together to optimize product costs from an enterprise perspective. Cost models provide the means for the team to objectively consider the implications of various development decisions. A company operating philosophy that emphasizes cost as a factor in the development decision-making process is a final requirement.

Access to product cost projections early in the development cycle will improve decision-making about design alternatives and lead to refinement of the design to come closer to the established cost targets. These costs projections will aid decisions about the design of the manufacturing process as well, focusing attention of elements of the product costs that do not meet the target and allowing consideration of alternative processes while it is still early enough in the development cycle to introduce new processes. The key is to emphasize management of product costs during development, not merely accumulating costs as designs are completed.

SUMMARY

Since the decisions made during the product development cycle account for seventy to eighty percent of product costs, product cost management must begin with the start of product development. Product development personnel must understand competitive pricing or customer affordability requirements. Target costs must be established at the start and used to guide decision-making. Development personnel must operate as entrepreneurs in making hard decisions about the product and process design to achieve target costs. Cost models must be provided to support decision-making early in the development cycle. And the quality of information and the cost models must be continually improved and refined. This increased focus on product or life cycle costs will lead to significantly reduced costs and more satisfied customers.

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IGN-TO-COST  OBJECT

Target cost management

CAM-I (Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing – International) was established 1972 as an international non-profit-organization to carry out research and scholarship on management and manufacturing technology systems. CAM-I has launched an extensive study labeled as target cost management (TCM). The CAM-I study group made the following conclusions concerning the major changes needed:

An overall management system is required to set the targets and to channel the decisions of all those involved in product definition and development towards wider corporate goals.

Product management must widen to incorporate both physical and service attributes measured in terms of customer value.

Cost management must shift its focus from accounting for the sake of accounting to enable expenditures to be used as a planning tool for creative product and process design.

Product profitability must be assessed and planned in the context of a comprehensive life cycle and the relationship of a broad market value chain. (CAM-I TCM Study Group statements 1994.)

The following quotations have been taken from a state-of-the-art review about target costing. Target costing is a cost management concept that has been developed and practiced in Japanese companies since the 1970s and has been described in English mainly by Japanese authors. Target costing is built on a comprehensive set of cost planning, cost management and cost control instruments which are aimed primarily at the early stages of product and process design in order to influence product cost structures resulting from

the market-derived requirements. The target costing process requires the cost orients coordination of all product related functions. (Horváth 1993.)

Japanese management accounting uses classification of predetermined and actual costs. Predetermined costs are the expected measures of the cost before production, while actual costs are calculated after production. Predetermined costs are divided into standard costs and estimated costs. Standard costs depend on statistical data and are utilized as an index for cost management. Estimated costs depend on the managers’ past experience or intuition (Makido 1992).

Target costing, as it has been developed in Japan, was invented by Toyota in 1965. Thus, the use of target costing has a long tradition at Toyota. At Toyota, they talk about cost planning and cost control, i.e. influencing product costs during the design phase and keeping the running costs as low as possible. Reducing cost through continuous improvement, “cost kaizen”, is becoming relatively less important, because the efforts made throughout the company will inevitably lead to fewer opportunities to cut costs. (Tanaka T 1993.)

For example, the lifetime target profit Ps of a new model (e.g. Celica) is calculated as follows:

Ps = P% * Sa

where P% is the profit ratio of sales and

Sa is the target sales.

The sales target is calculated using the retail price

Sa = Us * Qs

where

Us is the target retail price and

Qs is the target production volume over the product’s life.

Tanaka M (1989) claims that 80-90% of the life cycle cost is determined at the design phase of the product. Therefore, the present cost control system is focused on the design phase. The system consists of five stages: planning, concept design, basic design and manufacturing preparation. The phases are outlines below:

STEP1: Planning

Summarize the new product plan in a document that clarifies the design requirements:

1. Outline the product’s concept and mission.2. Generate primary specifications for the product’s

performance and design.

3. Schedule the product’s design, manufacturing and marketing.

4. Define product target cost, selling price and volume.

STEP2: Concept design

Formulate the basic concept of the new product based on the design requirements mentioned in step 1.

1. Formulate the main functional areas.2. Assign the target cost to the functional area of the new

product.

3. Design the basic product concept under the target cost.

4. Use a rough cost estimate to ascertain whether the basic product concept has been designed to fit the target cost.

STEP3: Basic design

Make a general drawing of the product based on the previous steps:

1. Assign target cost to the top and middle functions of each functional area or main component of the new product.

2. Frame a general drawing under the target cost.

3. Use a rough estimate to ascertain whether the general drawing has been designed to fit the target cost.

STEP4: Detailed design

Write the product’s manufacturing specifications based on:

1. The detailed manufacturing specifications under the target cost.

2. A detailed cost estimate to ascertain whether the product’s manufacturing specifications have been designed to fit the target cost.

STEP5: Manufacturing preparation

Write the product’s manufacturing specifications based on:

1. The design of the manufacturing process, type and jig under the target cost.

2. The detailed cost estimate used to ascertain whether the manufacturing preparations for the product are accomplished within the target cost. (Tanaka M 1989.)

Boer and Ettlie (1999) report a case where a car manufacturer could have prevented a $300 million mistake by using proactive target costing. The survey was conducted among the top-performing US R&D units and resulted in 126 questionnaires, of which 77 showed an orientation towards market-driven cost control. Xerox is mentioned as one the well-known practitioners of systematic proactive cost planning. (Boer & Ettlie 1999.)

According to Shank & Fisher (1999), target costing seems to be applied mostly at the early stages of product development, but the case of Montclair Paper Mill shows how the target costing principle can be applied at a later stage of the product life cycle. The situation of Montclair Mill seemed gloomy: The mill was making $700 loss per every ton of paper sold. The management believed that the loss was related to the market price rather than their own manufacturing. The standard cost of $2900 per ton was thought to be

based on a solid analysis and was taken for granted.

The implementation of target costing was introduced with a new target of $1162 per ton, which equals a 60% cost reduction. The management accepted the challenge, and after ta cost-driven analysis, four major reductions were accomplished:

1. Fiber cost: 60% cost reduction.2. Paper machine cost: Yield from 47% ->

75%.

3. Dye costs: material savings of $250 per ton incorporated in the yield improvement at the paper machine resulted in an amazing $769 reduction per ton.

4. Conversion costs: Based on benchmarking, a reduction from $303 to $150 was challenged with the risk of possible outsourcing. During 18 moths, the cost dropped to $240, and the continuous improvement seemed to gain even more.

Together, these produced the desired level of costing and a dramatic turnaround in the mind set. (Shank & Fisher 1999.)

Cooper & Slagmulder (1999) gives a comprehensive review of the application of target costing. He emphasizes the strategic value of target costing in managing the company’s future profits. According to their study of seven Japanese companies, the target costing discipline has been structured into three sections, as illustrated in Fig. 17.

Figure 17. Three main elements of the target costing process (Cooper & Slagmulder 1999).

Successful application of this process (Fig. 17) requires a highly disciplined approach. Each of the main phases must be balanced to avoid unrealistic target setting. The process starts from the left, by setting the company’s long-term sales and profits objectives, and continues through the product level targets to component level target costing. The role of the product chief engineer is remarkable in the fundamental decisions concerning product and component target costing. The senior management tends to push down the product target costs as much as possible while the chief engineer must find the realistic limits in co-operation with the design teams and the suppliers. Once these have been decided on, the Cardinal Rule is applied to ensure that discipline is maintained throughout the design process. The Cardinal Rule of target costing is: “The target cost must never be exceeded”. The Cardinal Rule controls the process in three ways:

1. If the design does not reach the target costs, the offsetting saving must be found somewhere else.

2. The company does not launch any product exceeding the target costs.

3. The design transfer to manufacturing must be well controlled to achieve the target cost.

As a conclusion, the early involvement of proactive product cost management has been highlighted as a major advantage of some leading Japanese companies in highly competitive markets.

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514264509/html/x1194.html

Use target costing to improve your bottom-line. (CPA in Industry)

by Lee, John Yee

Abstract- Target costing is a cost management concept that has been used very effectively by leading Japanese manufacturers. It is based on a long-term, market-driven perspective rather than on the short-term, profit-driven outlook of most US manufacturing companies. With its emphasis on market position and product leadership, target costing enables companies to attain low costs to ensure low prices that help maintain market share. It is similar to the emerging concept of activity-based costing in that it relates profit to return on sales as opposed to return on investment, thereby allowing the company greater flexibility in production management and in production development. It is also a very effective foundation for building long-term quality improvement initiatives.

Changing Product Life and Requirement

Product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter, quite often one or two years, sometimes to less than one year in high-tech industries. Consumers are demanding new and diversified products in short intervals. Due to factory automation, robots and computer-controlled manufacturing systems are replacing the conventional production lines. What all these changes mean is the traditional standard costing systems, which emphasize cost control in the manufacturing phase of the product life cycle, are no longer effective. With a one-year product life, controlling costs in the manufacturing phase simply doesn't accomplish much. Once the product is developed and designed, there is a limit to how much cost cutting companies can do in the manufacturing stage. U.S. manufacturers have learned cost management should start up front at the initial stage to be effective and measure up to their foreign counterparts.

A new cost management concept has been developed and practiced by worldclass Japanese manufacturers to deal with the needs in the product development and design phase. A case example illustrates the technique.

Control Costs Early

Target costing, although its concept is used throughout the product life cycle, is primarily used and most effective in the product development and design stage. Born out of the market-driven philosophy, target costing is based on the pricedown, cost-down strategy, which has allowed companies like Sony and Toyota to win a considerable share of their respective markets.

In U.S. companies, costs of designing, producing, marketing, and delivering products dictate the mode of competition. Accountants usually measure, based on allocation routines, the total cost of each product. Most popular cost accounting methodologies, including the emerging activity-based costing, focus on product profitability. No matter how effective the cost accounting methodology may be, managers and accountants must heed the shareholders' needs for satisfactory short- term profits, measured by ROI or ROE.

This focus on meeting the shareholders' short-term needs has been well documented, and easily understood if we look at the Big Three automakers' practice of raising prices whenever there is a restriction placed on Japanese imports. The practice is effective in achieving the desired ROI or ROE, but it hurts the carmakers' ability to increase market share in sales volume. An increased

market share would give them a buffer in the future if they choose to sacrifice sales volume to increase revenue and longterm profit.

In companies where target costing is used, there seems to be a different culture and attitude. They place more emphasis on their relative position in the market and product leadership. Since more than 80% of product cost is already determined by the time product design and processing is complete, cost management must start (and done substantially) at the design stage.

Connect with Profit Planning

Target costing is very closely linked with the company's long-term profit and product planning process. This link allows the company to focus on profit and product in an integrated strategy, which does not discriminate against high-quality, high-price, high-margin products that require high costs.

This is in direct contrast to a typical U.S. manufacturer's practice, in which the question persists, "How much does the product cost?" This question follows a new product design into the cost accounting department, which estimates the new product costs based on the prices of purchased materials and parts, labor costs, and other manufacturing overhead costs under the current production standards. The marketing department then addresses the issue of whether they can sell the new product. This departmentalized policy formulation of a typical U.S. company, which focuses on cost, tends to discriminate against developing a new high-quality, high-price product. Target costing derives its bases from the company-wide profit plan. The target profit for each period is determined for each of the new and existing product portfolios. The profitability of each group of related products is the focus, rather than the profitability of individual products. The desired profit margins are traded between products in the same group, depending on what stage the product is in its life cycle and what leadership role the product can play in acquiring a new segment of the market.

Setting the Target Costs

The main theme in the entire target costing practice is, "What should the new product cost?" It is not, "What does it cost?" Wben the target sales price is established based on market research, the desired profit is subtracted to yield the allowable cost. This allowable cost is top management's dream. This is a target which is very hard to attain, usually impossible in the short run.

The desired profit is determined based on the company's desired return on sales (ROS), rather than ROI. There are two primary reasons for using ROS. The first is technical, the second is strategic:

* The Technical Reason. In the fastchanging market of today, manufacturers need a variety of products in low volumes to survive. Calculating the profitability of each of those products in ROI is well- nigh impossible.

* The Strategic Reason. In the implementation of long-term strategies, manufacturers need to focus on the profitability of portfolios of related products and the role each product plays for the product group. For this, ROS provides a better measure. The allowable cost is compared to the estimated cost, which is based on the current standards of materials, labor, and overhead. In the meantime, intensive studies of competitors' parts are done. After motivational considerations have been made, the gap between allowable cost and estimated cost is reviewed on various dimensions. The target cost is then established as an attainable target which will motivate all personnel to achieve. Now, the struggle begins.

Achieving The Target Costs

At this point, cost management people help engineering planners and designers decompose the target cost into each cost element according to their relations to detailed production functions. Production engineers determine standards for material and part usage, labor consumption, etc., which become the basic cost data for financial accounting purposes. These standards are also used as a database for material requirements planning (MRP).

The struggle to achieve the target costs takes place in and outside the company. As soon as the above-mentioned standards are established, purchasing people negotiate with outside suppliers as to the prices of purchased materials and parts. Negotiations also take place among design, engineering, marketing, and other departments in the company, and compromises are made in their efforts to get within the target cost range.

The fundamental mechanism Japanese manufacturers use to achieve target cost, nevertheless, is value engineering (VE).

Value Engineering

The idea behind VE is very similar to activity analysis which was first developed and used by General Electric. GE's activity analysis was not, however, and was not intended to be, linked to corporate profit planning, target profit, and target costs as they are practiced In Japan.

VE is a mechanism Japanese manufacturers use to enhance the value of products and services, which is measured by the relationship between the functions performed by products and services and the costs incurred. The functions are defined by different companies in different ways. Some are geared toward process improvement while others are focused on satisfying the needs of customers.

The process of VE consists of describing the functions of each product, part, and service, and quantifying the components of those functions. For example, a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer's VE activities for the drilling operation include panel size, number of images per panel, lot size and frequency, number of holes, hole size, stack height, laminate thickness, post plate drill, and fine line class. In the design phase, management science techniques are employed on the many aspects of the drilling operation to improve upon the current method.

Post-Audit of Target Costing Performance

The short life cycles of manufactured goods in today's market require manufacturers to recover investment in a short time. A short payback period is usually assumed in planning and evaluating target costs. Post- audit of target costing performance is done on a regular basis to examine the degree to which targets have been achieved. If targets have not been achieved, investigations follow.

A Case Example

The following short case example is used to illustrate the process of determining target costs using production and cost figures.

PCBM, a Silicon Valley PCB manufacturer, is offered $48 per unit for 10,000 units of a multi-layer panel product by an electronic product manufacturer. SInce PCBM's usual return on sales (ROS) rate is 25 percent, the desired return on this offer is $120,000, calculated as follows:

Amount of the offer: $48 x 10,000 units = $480,000. Desired return: 25% x $48 = $12 per unit. $12 x 10,000 = $120,000 for the offer. The allowable cost for this production of 10,000 units is $36 per unit, or $360,000 for the offer, since sales price, $48, - desired return, $12, = $36 per unit. $36 x 10,000 units = $360,000 for the offer.

The estimated cost is calculated by the cost management team as $40 per unit, or $400,000 for the offer. The cost was estimated based on four layers requested, board length, board-width, two solder mask sides requested, five images per panel, one component legend side, estimated yield rate of 86%, panel size, material cost per panel of $19, and no tab plate edge. The impact of accepting the offer on the production plan and the cost of total production for the period was also considered.

The gap between the allowable cost ($360,000) and the estimated cost ($400,000) for the offer is $40,000, which is adopted as the target cost reduction. The "struggle" to eliminate the gap of $40,000 started with VE activities. After long hours of careful evaluation by production supervisors, process and product engineers, and cost management people, it was decided that VE activities should be focused on reducing the defect rate and material handling and purchasing.

A series of studies and analyses of material scraps and other types of defects were performed. Suggestions of possible improvement in performance by 30%, which was estimated to reduce unit cost by $2, were made, most of which looked too ambitious at first. But, since the new target costing-induced management plan had been accepted by all supervisors and managers of the plant, the suggestions were aggressively implemented by the processes and areas involved.

Improvements on material handling were centered around reducing material moving distances between the point of receiving the deliveries and the point of usage. Various moves were analyzed to reduce the distances. At the same time, the purchasing group of PCBM entered a long negotiation process with the suppliers, in order to persuade them to lower their prices. The result of these improvement activities was the reduction of another $1 per unit cost.

The combined reduction in cost per unit of $3, a total of $30,000, brought the cost to $370,000.

Although this was still higher than the allowable cost of $360,000 by $10,000, top management thought the efforts of those who were involved in reducing costs were substantial.

Furthor Action

After the successful execution of the target costing project, management asked the marketing team to review the $48 selling price. Since the customer was satisfied with the quality of the product, they were responsive to the request by PCBM for a review of the $48 price.

The customer's representative tried to justify the fair level of the current price by pointing out that no tab plate edge was required, which would reduce manufacturing costs.

Since PCBM had already designed and implemented an activity-based costing (ABC) system, it was rather easy to demonstrate the cost impact of each component. PCBM's ABC system, which had five process centers indicated the following costs of options:

The cost of solder mask option: $1.80

The cost of component legend option: $0.75

Since the customer's PCB didn't require tab plating, the ABC system already reflected that. No cost was charged to their order for the tab plating option. This helped PCBM earn credibility from the customer regarding the price quotes. The customer finally agreed to consider a price increase in the near future.

The Real Weapon

The real power of target costing is that it allows companies to successfully motivate employees and enforce cost management action plans. It is a disciplined approach to managing costs and improving processes and products. Target costing, as briefly illustrated here, is also very compatible with the emerging ABC, which can provide necessary cost information for implementing target costing. And target costing can be as effective in U.S. industry, as it has been in Japan.

http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/old/14979931.htm

Avoiding the Pitfalls

OBSTACLES

What are the obstacles in target costing? It takes time and money to bring sweeping changes into an organization. There's also the problem of changing workers' behavior. Why rock the boat if things are going well? The answer, target costing proponents say, is simple: In the long run your company will be better positioned to compete in the marketplace with target costing than without target costing.

"Most American companies are working in silos," says Keith Hallin, senior manager of finance in the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group in Seattle, who has introduced pilot programs in target costing at his company. "For instance, engineers focus on the specifications of the product. Target costing requires them to think beyond those traditional tasks and factor in the cost of the engineering, to perform cross-functionally."

American companies tend to build something and discover after it's produced that the price they need to charge to make a profit is too expensive for their customers. Then they try to find piecemeal solutions for reducing the cost. The target costing process requires that the desired cost to manufacture a product be spelled out ahead of time.

Since target costing is customer-driven, it can improve customer satisfaction. It also allows more people in the company to understand the company's objectives and how they are going to be achieved, because it encourages people with different functions to work on the same team to meet the collective target costing goals. Target costing, ideally, arrives at a price that works for the company as well as the customer. That makes it a more effective way to do business, and companies that have used target costing have indeed found that they reach their profit goals more effectively.

Controllers who introduce target costing successfully into their organization may change how co-workers perceive financial types, from a policeman or someone with a big stick to a valued partner working on everyone's behalf. Workers can understand that the reasons behind your cost objectives are directly related to gaining a competitive advantage, not merely a dictum from senior management.

http://www.businessfinancemag.com/magazine/archives/article.html?articleID=4308&pg=2

PRODUCT AND CONSUMER INFLUENCESoduct and Customer Influences

A number of factors influence target costing, including senior management's objectives and your company's long-term profit objectives. But while every company uses target costing differently, there are some things that will influence your target costing efforts no matter what type of business you're in or what your corporate culture is. They are the type of customer you sell to and the type of product you make or service you offer.

10 Advantages of Target Costing

If you are successful in implementing and maintaining an effective target costing system, you may be able to:

1. Determine an expected cost of manufacturing a product or providing a service.

2. Achieve greater cost efficiencies.

3. Spend money where it will have the greatest impact.

4. Identify customers' real needs.

5. Match your firm's activities to your customers' requirements.

6. Increase customer satisfaction.

7. Give co-workers a better understanding of cost objectives.

8. Allow co-workers to participate in setting quality, cost and time targets.

9. Transform your image of "policeman" into that of a valued partner working on everyone's behalf.

10. Become more competitive globally.

It may seem obvious to tie the cost of your product or service to the needs of your customers. But target costing makes more of a defined effort to achieve this objective than traditional costing methods. That effort extends to researching customer needs, something Boeing takes very seriously.

"In research-gathering seminars, I ask how many people own one of our products, and no one raises their hand," says Boeing's Hallin. "Then I ask how many people have ever flown in one of our planes, and everyone's hand goes up. Although ours is a business-to-business company, we want to understand not only how our immediate customers [airplane purchasers and lessors] use our product, but how their customers, the passengers, use it as well."

Target costing says you need to match your firm's activities to your customer's requirements. Dr. Judith E. Hennessey, professor and chairwoman of the marketing department in the College of Business Administration and Economics at California State University, Northridge, Calif., offers an example.

"Suppose you're an automaker and you've determined your customers want comfort," says Hennessey. "Evaluate your product as it relates to enhancing customer comfort, perhaps by looking at the springs in the seat, the upholstery, the angle of the seat, the car's suspension. Enhance those things and reduce costs in areas that aren't as important to the customer."

Uncovering customers' real

needs can occasionally be difficult even with a simple product, and even for the best of companies. "When Procter & Gamble developed their Pringle's potato chip, they asked people what they wanted from a potato chip, and the answer uniformly was freshness," Hennessey says. "The product was launched in a vacuum-sealed can to maximize freshness, and initially, it was successful. But then customers found out that the product didn't taste very good. Procter & Gamble had missed taste as a customer need."

If in creating product functions that reflect what the customer wants your costs become too high to hit your target, don't give up. Find other areas less important for customer satisfaction and try to reduce those costs. If the process doesn't work the first time around, try again. "Sometimes, target costing needs many iterations to carry it through," says Hennessey.

How does your product influence target cost? Generally, the longer your product development cycle from the design stage to the production stage, the more difficult it may be to establish firm target costs early on. For instance, if your cycle is up to four years, which is how long it typically takes at Boeing

according to Hallin, the target cost you establish may need to be revised over the years.

Some companies with a long product development cycle take the process in incremental steps. They have an allowable cost for each component function, then the total allowable costs of all the functions for making the product are added to arrive at an expected cost of manufacturing the product. It's usually impractical for a company with hundreds of design and production components to evaluate all of them, so a representative sample of allowable costs is taken and applied to all components. From these costs comes an updated target cost. Companies with shorter product development cycles may find they can stick to their initial target cost more easily because they are not as susceptible to the changes that time can impose.

"The simpler and more straightforward your product, the easier it is to implement target costing," says George Millush, program director for project redesign on all financial processes at Chrysler Corp. in Auburn Hills, Mich. "We're very interested in target costing, but it takes time to put the pieces in motion, and we're just in the infant stages here."

http://www.businessfinancemag.com/magazine/archives/article.html?articleID=4308&pg=3