IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTIVITY-BASED MANAGEMENT

Jane Erickson, manager of an electronics division, was not pleased with the results that had recently been reported concerning the division's activity-based management implementation project. For one thing, the project had taken eight months longer than projected and had exceeded the budget by nearly 35 percent. But even more vexatious was the fact that after all was said and done, about three-fourths of the plants were reporting that the activity-based product costs were not much different for most of the products than those of the old costing system. Plant managers were indicating that they were continuing to use the old costs as they were easier to compute and understand. Yet, at the same time, they were complaining that they were having a hard time meeting the bids of competitors. Reliable sources were also revealing that the division's product costs were higher than many competitors'.

This outcome perplexed plant managers because their control system still continued to report favorable materials and labor efficiency variances. They complained that ABM had failed to produce any significant improvement in cost performance. Jane decided to tour several of the plants and talk with the plant managers. After the tour, she realized that her managers did not understand the concept of non-valueadded costs nor did they have a good grasp of the concept of kaizen costing. No efforts were being made to carefully consider the activity information that had been produced. One typical plant manager threw up his hands and said: "This is too much data. Why should I care about all this detail? I do not see how this can help me improve my plant's performance. They tell me that inspection is not a necessary activity and does not add value. I simply can't believe that inspecting isn't value-added and necessary. If we did not inspect, we would be making and sending more bad products to customers."

Required:

Explain why Jane's division is having problems with its ABM implementation.