the-discussion-of-ways-and-methods-the-(企业降低成本的途径及方法探讨)—外文翻译-学位论文.doc

企业降低成本的途径及方法探讨现代企业降低成本应当靠战略成本管理来完成，而在一个企业的核心范围的战略成本管理系统，存在着两个明显不同的模块。其中一个模块主要是用来改善经营，其目的是帮助公司变得更有功率。另一个模块是战略成本，其目的是帮助确定该公司的盈利的来源。不幸的是，许多企业尝试只有使用一个系统来完成两项系统的任务。这种单一的系统是注定会运行不佳的。经营改善。业务改善模块的设计必须确保个人获得的成本信息，能够帮助他们更有效地进行活动。这一目标要求的成本信息及时(即活动完成后必须马上收到)、高精度（没有不重要的测量误差引入），和重点集中（即由个人负责的对资源的实际消耗情况可以掌握）。如果那些信息允许个人有效地监督执行，那么这些属性是必要的。此外，他们大多数本身是相对短期的。长期的改善通常是某些具体活动的成果，而这些活动往往聚焦于减少某一具体的长期成本。时间表是重要的，因为如果反馈过早或太迟，那么改善不会在最佳时刻出现。反馈，对于那些使个人不能够方便地检测到任何已作出改善的成果的成本信息来说，我觉得为时过早。例如，如果一个进程的修改要三个小时才能生效，然后每半个小时反馈一次，除非该人知道，周期为3小时，否则反馈必将混乱。同样，如果反馈太晚，那么个人就必须对每个人反馈周期的每个单一变化慎重，否则多种变化的影响将会更加复杂。例如，如果该周期仍然是3个小时，但所得的回应8小时来一次转换，那么对于今天的竞争环境的改善率而言，个人理论上应该努力使每个人只有一个改进的转变变慢。如果反馈只是在本月底提供，个人可能会无法识别采取的行动和业绩成果间的任何关系。关键是要与活动周期的反馈同步。测量的精度水平要求高，因为任何的测量误差都将使个人在很大程度上无法识别他们对整个公司运行的贡献如果测量不够准确，将很难促使性能改进，因为个人将没有办法区分进行中的真正变化和测量过程中的错误。间接成本分配是适得其反业务的改善。即使他们捕获下属的因果关系，这种转让也会不可避免地把不可接受的错误水平引到测量过程中。此外，他们可以把不可接受的延误引入到反馈过程中。如果个人在运行变化的贡献还有待确定的话，反馈过程是需要个具体重点的。如果焦点不够具体，只有将被衡量的复合改善大大减少，并且相互指责往往成为一种生活的方式。具体的重点需要对每个人或团体的表现进行直接衡量。如果一家公司正在努力改善电力消费，那么凡需要进行的地方必须按上仪表器进行分开测量，如果两个这样的地方共同一个电表，将没有办法确定每个位置分别得电力消耗。战略成本。战略成本模块的设计必须确保个人获得的信息能够帮助他们确定该公司盈利的主要来源。特别是模块必须报告各种成本对象如产品、客户、渠道和组织单位的成本。这些客观之处对成本信息的要求比对经营改善的要求严格得多。策略性成本要求的成本资料定期、合理、准确，并具有广泛的重点。有两个原因，需要的仅仅是定期更新。第一，战略决策的类型所涉及的，如修改产品和客户混合物，是长期的，不受持续调整。因此，提供持续的反馈没有意义，因为管理者将无法做出反应。第二，只有利润情况发生了巨大变化时，才会做出类似放弃现有产品德决定。因此，只有当积累的改善力度足够大时，才需要一个新的战略成本报告。由于正在作出的决定的性质，因此只有合理的准确性才是需要的。成功德产品可能有30%-50%的利润差额，而且其中的10%-30%是可以接受的。在报告的成本中，一个±10%的误差很少会导致不同的决定。如果真的不同，一个错误的决定意义很小（例如，拥有低利润可能从下降向保持转换，反之亦然）。与非常高相反，在战略成本系统中，诣在合理精确水平的关键含义就在于不定期成本分配程序的费用是可以估计的。尽管这些不太严格的要求，但以活动为基础的成本的出现表明，有效的战略成本管理是需要准确合理的水平。一个广泛的焦点是必要的，因为成本的战略目标，要求该公司的整个价值链的成本分配到成本对象。这种广泛的关注意味着，相对那些几乎纯粹是经营改善计划的短期方向而言，短期和长期的成本都包含于战略成本分析中。有效的战略成本存在于直接成本中。那些应该包含于战略成本分析中的费用就是那些可以合理预期的，与设想决定种类一块改变的费用。真正的长期费用，如与设施相关的，应当排除在外。只有当作出的决定能够处理好设施水平的重大变化，如添加新的或关闭现有的设施，他们才会变得相关。关于战略成本的、分析中的费用，没有硬性的规定，但是忽略除了直接或其他任何形式的成本外的一切费用以及包括各种费用的方法都不是多数情况下解决问题的适当办法。两个模块之间的相互关系。这两个模块，由于非常依赖成本信息的不同种类，因此应该需要进行设计，以便能够明确有力地表达各种意思。虽然改进的业务改进的业务系统所使用的信息应在当前，战略成本核算系统的信息应该是最新的且战略成本核算系统的信息只定期地在当下提出，他们都试图捕捉相同的底层现实。关键的一点是，业务改进模块应该是由战略的成本计算模式所使用的大部分信息的主要来源。有几种维持业务改进和战略成本模块关系的方法，而一种特别有效的方法就是请求两种不同的标准。第一套标准-更新标准，每修改一次，就获得一次进步。这些标准用于校对该公司目前的表现。他们应该认真加以更新，以便能够准确地反映企业的能力。如果更新过于激进，他们将创造一个不利于因素来改善，因为正常的业绩将低于标准。另外如果更新过于保守，也不会引起足够的压力进行改善。第二套标准-“战略标准”，定期修改或公司在效率上的巨大改变得以实现时修改。由于这些标准用于支持长期的决定，他们没有必要不断更新，事实上，这样做是不合适的。因此，现有的战略标准将会定期被更新的标准作代替。这一更换带来了与公司目前能力一致的战略标准。准确所固有的不同程度的更新和战略标准不存在问题。更新标准处理执行的活动；战略标准处理成本对象。更新标准必须高度精确，而从活动到成本对象的费用分配却只需要适度精确的够了。因此，当活动在多个成本对象的基础上执行的时候，一个临时的分配过程可用于驱动从活动水平到成本对象级别的间接费用。 战略标准广泛的焦点同样是不存在问题的。战略标准的长期元素可以被添加到起源更新标准的短期元素中。例如，机器折旧是一种长期的成本，不包括在各业务的改善中。因此，它是专门用来计算战略核算系统并将之纳入战略标准的。因此，有可能通过阐明两个模块，来确保他们说出一致而又不同的故事。然而，除了经营改善和战略成本公司还必须向其外部利益相关者报告成本信息。战略成本计算模块和公司的财务报告系统之间的相互关系将在下个月的专栏进行讲解。The Discussion of Ways And Methods The Enterprise Reduces The CostModern enterprise to reduce costs shall rely on the strategic cost management to finish But two distinct modules lie at the heart of an enterprise-wide strategic cost management system 。The first of these modules deals with operational improvement ；its aim is to help a firm become more efficient 。The other module is strategic costing ；its objective is to help identify the firms sources of profitability 。Unfortunately ,many firms try to use only one system to perform both tasks 。Such single systems are doomed to perform poorly 。Operational Improvement . The operational improvement module must be designed to ensure that individuals receive cost information that helps them perform activities more efficiently 。This objective demands that the cost information be timely (it is received soon after the activity has been performed ) , highly accurate ( these are no significant measurement errors introduced), and specific in focus (the actual consumption of resources by the responsible individual is captured) 。These properties are necessary if the information is to allow individuals to monitor their performance effectively 。Furthermore, most of the relatively short-term in nature。Long-term improvements usually are outcomes of special programs focused on reducing specific long-term costs。Timelines is important because if the feedback is too early or too late, then improvements will not occur optimally。Feedback that I too early to cost information that does not enable an individual to easily detect the outcomes of any improvements that have been made。For example, if a process modification takes three hours to take effect, then feedback every half hour will be distracting（混乱）unless the individual knows that the cycle is three hours。Similarly , if the feedback is too late , then the individual will have to be careful about making only a single change per feedback period ,or the effects of multiple changes will be compounded。For example , if the cycle is still three hours, but the feedback comes at the end of an eight-hour shift，then the individual theoretically should try to make only one improvement per shift-far too slow a rate of improvement for todays competitive environment。If the feedback is provided only at the end of the month , the individual probably will not be able to identify any relationship between actions taken and performance outcomes。The key is to synchronize the feedback with the activity cycle。A high level of accuracy is required because any significant level of measurement error will make it impossible for individuals to identify their contribution to overall firm performance。If the measurements are not sufficiently accurate, it will be difficult to motivate performance improvements because these is no way that individuals can differentiate between a real change in performance and an error in the measurement process。Indirect cost assignment is counter productive for operational improvement。Even when they capture underling causality , such assignments inevitably will introduce unacceptable levels of error into the measurement process。Furthermore, they can introduce unacceptable delay into the feedback process 。 A specific focus to the feedback is required if individual contributions to changes in performance are to be identified 。If the focus is not sufficiently specific, only combined improvements will be measured is reduced，and finger pointing (“the other person failed to improve”) often becomes a way of life 。Specific focus requires direct measurement of the performance of each individual or group。For example，if a firm is trying to improve the consumption of electricity，then every location where an improvement is required must be metered separately because if two such locations share an electric meter , there is no way to determine how much electricity each location consumed separately。Strategic Costing . The strategic costing module must be designed to ensure that individuals receive the information that helps them identify the firms major sources of profitability。In particular, the module must report costs for various cost objects such as products, customers, channels ,and organizational units。This objective places far less exacting demands upon the cost information than operational improvement。Strategic costing demands that the cost information be periodic , reasonable accurate, and has a broad focus 。For two reasons, only periodic updates are required。First, the types of strategic decisions that are involved, such as modifying product and customer mixes, are long-term and are not subject to continuous revision。Therefore, providing continuous feedback is pointless because managers will be unable to react to it。Second, decisions such as dropping an existing product are made only when the profit picture has changed dramatically。Therefore ,only when the cumulative improvement are large is a new strategic cost report required。Similarly, only reasonable accuracy is required because of the nature of the decisions being made。Successful products may have profit margins that range form 30% to 50% and acceptable profit margins that range from 10% to 30% 。An error of ±10% in reported costs will rarely lead to different decisions。When it does, the significance of an erroneous decision is small (for example, products that have low or slightly negative profitability might shift form drop to keep or vice versa 。The critical implication of aiming at reasonable, as opposed to very high, levels of accuracy in a strategic cost system is that costs can be estimated using causal cost assignment procedures。Despite these less stringent demands for accuracy, however, the emergence of activity-based costing has demonstrated that effective strategic cost management does require reasonable levels accuracy。A broad focus is necessary because the strategic costing objective requires that the costs of the firms entire value chain be assigned to cost objects. This broad focus means that both short-and long-term costs are included in the strategic cost analysis as opposed to the almost purely short-term orientation of the operational improvement program。 Effective strategic costing lies somewhere between direct costing 。 The costs that should be included in strategic cost analysis are those that reasonably can be expected to change with the types of decisions envisioned。 The really long-term costs, such as those associated with the facility, should be excluded。They will become relevant only if the decision deals with significant changes at the facility level, such as adding a new facility or closing an existing one。There are no hard and fast rules about which costs to in the strategic cost analysis, but neither ignoring everything except direct or variable costs nor including all costs are appropriate solutions most settings.Interrelationship Between the Two Modules. The two modules, while relying on very different types of cost information, should be designed so they articulate. While the information used by the operational improvement system should be current and the information in the strategic costing system should be current and the information in the strategic costing system only periodically brought up to date, they are both trying to capture the same underlying reality. The critical point is that the operational improvement module should be the primary source of much of the information used by the strategic costing module.There are several ways to maintain the relationship between the operational improvement and strategic costing modules ,but a particularly effective one is to sue two sets of standards. The first set of standards the “updated” standards , is modified every time an improvement is achieved. These standards are used to calibrate the firms current performance. They should be updated carefully so that they reflect the capabilities of the firm accurately. If the updating is too aggressive, they will create a disincentive to improve because normal performance will be below standard. Alternatively, if they are updated too conservatively, they will not create an adequate pressure to improve.The second set of standards, the“strategic”standards, is modified periodically or when significant changes in the firms efficiency have been achieved. As these standards are used to support long-term decisions, they do not have to be updated continuously-in fact, to do so would be inappropriate. Consequently, the existing strategic standards are replaced periodically with the latest updated standards. This replacement brings the strategic standards in line with the firms current capabilities.The differing levels of accuracy that are inherent to the updated and strategic standards are not problematic。The updated standards deal with the activities that are performed; the strategic standards deal with cost objects. While the updated standards have to be highly accurate, the assignment of costs form the activities to the cost objects just needs to be reasonably accurate. Thus, when activities are performed upon multiple cost objects, a causal assignment process can be used to drive the indirect costs from the activity level to the cost object level.The broader focus of the strategic standards is similarly no problematic. The long-term elements of the strategic standards can be added to the short-term elements that are derived from the updated standards. For example, machine depreciation is a long-term cost and isnt covered by operational improvement. Therefore, it is calculated specifically for the strategic costing system and incorporated into the strategic standards.Thus, it is possible to articulate the two modules, ensuring that they tell consistent though different stories. In addition to operational improvement and strategic costing, however, firms also must report cost information to their external stakeholders. The interrelationship between the strategic costing module and the firms financial reporting system is covered in next months column.