Publications

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May 1997
Case

Toyota Motor Corporation: Target Costing System

Explores Toyota's target costing system, considered to be the most advanced such system of any major Japanese manufacturer. Specifically, describes Toyota's process of setting rigorous cost-reduction goals and the steps taken to achieve them. View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Japan

21 Feb 2024
News

Process of Elimination: Why Layoffs Are Hitting Media, Tech and Gaming – Despite Their Steep Costs

March 2016
Article

Using Quality Improvement Methods and Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Improve Value-Based Cancer Care Delivery at a Cancer Genetics Clinic

By: R.Y. Tan, M. Met-Domestici, K. Zhou, A.B. Guzman, S.T. Lim, K.C. Soo, T.W. Feeley and J. Ngeow

Purpose:
To meet increasing demand for cancer genetic testing and improve value-based cancer care delivery, National Cancer Centre Singapore restructured the Cancer Genetics Service in 2014. Care delivery processes were redesigned. We sought to improve access by... View Details

Keywords: Cancer Treatment; Value Based Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care and Treatment; Quality; Performance Improvement; Activity Based Costing and Management

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October 1994
Case

Yokohama Corporation, Ltd. (B): Cost Management System

Illustrates the budget planning process at a Japanese firm. Also describes a highly traditional cost accounting system, and shows how variances are used for performance measurement. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Performance Evaluation; Budgets and Budgeting; Japan

September 2016
Article

Value Based Care and Bundled Payments: Anesthesia Care Costs for Outpatient Oncology Surgery Using Time-driven Activity-based Costing

By: Katy E. French, Alexis B. Guzman, Augustin C. Rubio, John C. Frenzel and Thomas Feeley

Background: With the movement towards bundled payments, stakeholders should know the true cost of the care they deliver. Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) can be used to estimate costs for each episode of care. In this analysis, TDABC is used to both... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry; Health Industry

December 1991 (Revised October 1998)
Case

Eli Lilly and Co.: Manufacturing Process Technology Strategy--1991

By: Gary P. Pisano, Steven C. Wheelwright and Jonathan West

Outlines the evolution of Lilly's corporate manufacturing strategy over the past decade. The corporate vice president of manufacturing must decide on the next phase of Lilly's strategy for the early 1990s, as well as to what extent and what role process development... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Structures; Product Development; Production; Research and Development; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

August 1988 (Revised November 1988)
Case

Texas Instruments: Cost of Quality (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Texas Instruments implements a Cost of Quality (COQ) system as part of a company-wide "Total Quality Thrust." After several years of operation, group management questions whether or not the COQ system should be updated to make it more useful in identifying areas for... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement

December 1996 (Revised February 2000)
Background Note

Assigning Support Department Expenses to Production Cost Centers (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Describes the first stage of the two-stage cost assignment process from support/service departments to production cost centers. View Details

Keywords: Cost

Article

How Not to Cut Health Care Costs

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Derek A. Haas

Health care providers in much of the world are trying to respond to the tremendous pressure to reduce costs—but evidence suggests that many of their attempts are counterproductive, raising costs and sometimes decreasing the quality of care. Using evidence from field... View Details

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May 2011
Case

Baria Planning Solutions, Inc.: Fixing the Sales Process

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and William Schmidt

Baria Planning Solutions (BPS) is a consulting firm that specializes in using spend analysis to help companies identify savings through reduced procurement costs and improved supplier performance. Management is concerned about the disappointing performance of the sales... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Technology; Operations Management; Product Lines; Manufacturing; Capacity Planning; Production Planning; Production; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Supply Chain Management; Salesforce Management; Planning; Consulting Industry; North and Central America

24 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Managing Alignment as a Process

corporate synergies should be defined at the top and realized in the business units. Just as the CFO coordinates the budgeting process, a senior executive should coordinate the alignment process—a responsibility for the Office of Strategy Management (OSM). The annual... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Retail

01 Mar 2014
News

Innovation: Crowdfunding College Costs

Savingforcollege.com, which Cordero describes as "the Consumer Reports of 529 plans.") The plan is to capitalize on market share down the road: "There is a lot of value in processing millions of dollars of new assets," he remarks. "Our... View Details

Keywords: Hanna, Julia; Gradsave; crowdfunding; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Finance

24 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

How Cost Accounting is Improving Healthcare in Rural Haiti

personnel who had no previous experience with measuring costs at all. Working with local administrators, the team designed a simple procedure for collecting data on patient care. As the case explains: “The View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

07 Dec 2015
News

Easing the Costs of Adoption

When Kerr Taylor (OPM 39, 2010) and his wife, Jill, returned home from Russia in 1998 with their adopted daughter, Christina, they brought with them a desire to make the process easier for other families. They created Pathways for Little... View Details

2016
Article

Vicarious Contagion Decreases Differentiation—and Comes with Costs

By: Ovul Sezer and Michael I. Norton

Baumeister et al. propose that individual differentiation is a crucial determinant of group success. We apply their model to processes lying in between the individual and the group—vicarious processes. We review literature in four domains—attitudes, emotions, moral... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Attitudes; Emotions

November–December 2014
Article

Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Identify Value-Improvement Opportunities in Healthcare

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski, Megan Abbott, Alexis Guzman, Laurence Higgins, John Meara, Erin Padden, Apurva Shah, Peter Waters, Marco Weidemeier, Samuel Wertheimer and Thomas W. Feeley

As healthcare providers cope with pricing pressures and increased accountability for performance, they should be rededicating themselves to improving the value they deliver to their patients: better outcomes and lower costs. Time-driven activity-based costing offers... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States; Europe

March 2017
Article

Variation in the Cost of Care for Primary Total Knee Arthroplasties

By: Derek A. Haas and Robert S. Kaplan

The study examined the cost variation across 29 high-volume U.S. hospitals for delivering a primary total knee arthroplasty without major complicating conditions. Hospital and physician personnel costs were calculated using time-driven activity-based costing.... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Performance Productivity; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry