Lowdown on Lean Accounting

396 Words2 Pages
The Lowdown on Lean Accounting Lean refers to the management system of applying Lean principles to operations, and Lean Accounting refers to attempts to derive monetary management information based on Lean principles (Van der Merwe, 2007). Lean Accounting is the general term used for changes required to a company’s accounting, control, measurement processes to support lean manufacturing. Many companies that use lean manufacturing realize that their accounting processes and management methods are at odds with the lean changes being made. Lean has proven to be an effective management philosophy for improving businesses in a competitive market by eliminating waste and improving operations. May businesses in the US have been trying to use lean manufacturing principles in the market in order to stay competitive. Although the lean approach is promising, the progress of adopting it by manufacturing companies has been progressing slowly. Lean manufacturing goes against the rules of mass production. The traditional accounting methods are unsuitable and are hostile to the lean changes the company is making. There are a few problems associated with this. A major problem is that lean improvements showing cost increases as a result of the way standard costing applies labor and overhead costs. Lean accounting also indentifies the financial impact of lean improvements. There are at least three assertions in Lean Accounting that justify closer scrutiny. The first assertion is that Accounting is the problem. Next, all conversion costs (in Lean Accounting conversion costs are defined as all value stream costs except materials and purchased outside services) are fixed and the last reason are the Claims for support of external reporting. Lean accounting does not stand alone. It supports lean manufacturing, lean product design, lean logistics, and more. Lean Accounting motivates
Open Document