The Standard Costing System At SKF

Abstract

In recent years, numerous tools such as activity-based costing, the balanced scorecard and target costing have gained prominence in the business community. Nonetheless, traditional management accounting continues to be prevalent in practice. One example is standard costing, which has been used on a wide front during the last century. The purpose of this study is to examine the use and the relevance of the standard costing system used at the Swedish manufacturing company SKF and to provide recommendations on how the system can be improved. In sum, the study shows that the standard costing system is widely used and that it is perceived as relevant. However, some areas for improvement of the standard costing system were identified, for example the communication within the organization and the use of the guidelines regarding allocation bases.