TABLE OF CONTENTS The cost accounting trend is somewhat different than the technology and quality trends in that its origin is more tightly linked to the financial operations within manufacturing companies rather than their manufacturing operations. This was also a much more difficult trend for our research team to gain an understanding of because the team members are automation focused and had much less interest in and knowledge of accounting principles and techniques.
At the beginning of the research program, the executives being interviewed discussed cost accounting as a critical success factor in gaining the benefit of automation. Nevertheless, the research team did not grasp the significance of this factor, perhaps because team members felt that it was obvious that proving the economic value of automation or any other program would require an effective accounting approach. Perhaps the team just assumed that the accounting systems companies currently used possessed all the information required. What the team missed early on was that the executives being interviewed were trying to point out that an effective accounting approach did not yet exist to effectively capture the economic value resulting from automation or any other manufacturing process improvement.
As did the technology and quality trends, the cost accounting trend has evolved through three major phases over time and is still evolving (figure 4.1). As the research project began, traditional cost accounting systems had been in place and operating in one form or another for decades without any appreciable modification. Some of the executives...
