Life Cycle Cost Modeling of Pumps Using an Activity Based Costing Methodology

In order to survive in today’s competitive global business environment, implementation of life cycle costing methodology with a greater emphasis on cost control could be one of the convincing approaches for the manufacturing firms. The product life cycle costing approach can help track and analyse the cost implications associated with each phase of product life cycle. Life cycle costing (LCC) practices with traditional costing methods may provide results that have a severe deviation from the real product LCC as it focuses on the cost of materials, labor and a low portion of overheads apportioned by the absorption rate to the product. Activity based costing (ABC) has emerged as one of the several innovative and more accurate costing methods in recent years. It is based on the principle that products or services consume activities and activities consume resources that generate costs. Thus, the ABC system focuses on calculating the costs incurred on performing the activities to manufacture a product. This paper presents a LCC modeling approach for estimating life cycle cost of pumps using activity based costing method. The study was conducted in a large pump manufacturing company from India that has significant global standing within its industry. Firstly, all the activities and cost drivers associated with the life cycle of a pump have been identified. A methodology for LCC analysis using ABC is then developed and it is applied to two different pumps manufactured by the same industry and the results obtained are presented.