Continuous Improvement and Internal Benchmarking Applied to Cost Management: Experience in a Multinational Group
Mejora Continua y Benchmarking Interno Aplicados a la Gestión de Costes: Experiencia en un Grupo Multinacional
Abstract
One of the contemporary organizations’ priorities is to face cost reduction without dramatically affecting the organization ‘s survival Thus, the aim of this paper is to provide evidence on (1) the importance of Management Accounting information for cost reduction purposes and (2) the role of some Control System components in order to carry out this strategy. A longitudinal case study has been carried out at a Spanish subsidiary of a multinational chemical group in order to attain the study’s objectives. This chemical plant introduced a cost reduction project in the mid 1990’s. The most salient results were on the one hand, the implementation of quality circles and infernal benchmarking practices and, on the other hand the importance of both formal and non-formal Control System components in order to successfully achieve the project’s objectives.
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