COST DEPLOYMENT IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE STUDY

The paper deals with modern managerial and accounting tools and specifically with cost deployment, a key pillar into the World Class Manufacturing programme designed by FCA. After presenting a Literature review on the topics of World Class Manufacturing, Managerial accounting and Cost Deployment, which addressed this study, the work sets methodological framework of research, underlining the gaps in the current Literature, which provides few evidences of the actual results and benefits of a cost deployment system. The research was conducted through a case study presenting the implementation of a cost deployment system into a large manufacturing firm in the North-West of Italy, analysed through the steps suggested by FCA. Data collection was carried out in collaboration with the operations controller of the plant. Several semi-structured interviews provided more evidences to support conclusions. This company was chosen because the implementation of the cost deployment tool was on an early stage, this made possible to follow-up the entire process. The present research helps understand the effectiveness of this tool, which supports manufacturing firms in reaching higher levels of quality, output and overall efficiency in their production systems. In addition, the paper gives evidence of the benefits tracked by controlling thanks to the System even at an early stage of development and underlines the major differences with the theoretical framework set in previous studies.