| Summary: | Target costing is cost and profit management technique to manage the future profitability of the firm by disciplining the product development process. In traditional target costing system, accounting income rather than economic income is used to determine the target cost of the product. The failure to incorporate cost of capital in a product allowable cost can lead to sub optimal product mix and investment decisions from value based management (VBM) perspective.
The purpose of the dissertation is to review the target costing system in the context of value based management. It outlines the theoretical framework of integrating EVA, a value based metric marketed by Stern Stewart & Co., with target costing system. In addition, it presents an empirical case study of Design to cost(DTC) system in Siemens whereby such integration is put into business practice. The features of the Siemens DTC system are described into details and appraised against the theoretical framework developed. The paper also examines the benefits and challenges of such integration and the extent to which the two disciplines can be combined based on the empirical evidences. Finally, it discusses the implications of the integration system for both target costing and value based management.
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