在20世纪80年代后期，信息管理系统的广泛应用，使得实业界普遍感到产品成本处处与现实脱节，成本扭曲普遍存在，且扭曲程度令人吃惊。

Much modern manufacturing relies on highly automated,expensive manufacturing plants–so much so that some companies do not separately identify the cost of labour because there is so little used.Instead,factory labour is simply regarded as a fixed overhead and added in to the fixed costs of running the factory,its machinery,and the sophisticated information technology system which coordinates production.

具体表现为现代制造企业大多采用了高度自动化机械设备，以至于人工成本在产品成本中的比重越来越小，甚至有些企业已经把人工成本归类为固定制造费用，作为期间费用的一部分进行成本核算，这与传统的料工费归集方法有了很大不同。

Many companies rely on customisation of products to differentiate themselves and to enable higher margins to be made.Dell,for example,a PC manufacturer,has a website which lets customers specify their own PC in terms of memory size,capacity,processor speed etc.That information is then fed into their automated production system and the specified computer is built,more or less automatically.

另外，在市场竞争日益激烈化的背景下，产品差异化策略被许多企业采用，希望以此作为突破点来抢占更多的市场份额，获得更高的利润。戴尔公司基于此建立了专门的网站以供顾客按照自己的要求配置电脑，选择适合自己需要的的处理器、内存等等，随后这些信息会提供给生产部门，这样一台私人定制的笔记本电脑就诞生了。

Instead of offering customers the ability to specify products,many companies offer an extensive range of products,hoping that one member of the range will match the requirements of a particular market segment.

除了给顾客私人定制的便利，许多企业还会提供多功能、多种类的产品，以适应不同顾客的需要，产品市场百花齐放。

机械化的高度发展，IT技术的使用，以及由此产生出的设备维护成本、研发成本、市场调研成本，而所有这些因素都是传统成本法考虑不到的，一场对传统技术的改进迫在眉睫。

These developments in manufacturing and marketing mean that the conventional way of treating fixed overheads might not be good enough.Companies need to know the causes of overheads,and need to realise that many of their‘fixed costs’might not be fixed at all.They need to try to assign costs to products or services on the basis of the resources they consume.

现代企业需要知道制造费用的起因，需要认识到哪些费用是固定的，哪些费用其实是可以避免的，需要对各种产品进行盈利分析，而所有的这些信息都会因传统成本法的使用而失真，对管理决策造成了很大困难。寻找一种方法可以基于每种产品所消耗的资源对产品成本进行精确的归集成了迫切需要解决的难题。

美国哈佛大学的青年学者库伯（Robin Cooper）和教授卡普兰（Robert S Kaplan）在对美国公司调查研究之后，发展了前人的思想，提出了以作业为基础的成本计算，Activity Based Costing（简称ABC成本法）应运而生。

The ABC process is as follows:

1.Split fixed overheads into activities.These are called cost pools.

2.For each cost pool identify what causes that cost.In ABC terminology,this is the‘cost driver’,but it might be better to think of it as the‘cost causer’.

3.Calculate a cost per unit of cost driver(Cost pool/total number of cost driver).

4.Allocate costs to the product based on how much the product uses of the cost driver.

首先，ABC成本法要识别不同活动的成本，并把他们分到不同的活动成本库（Activity cost pool），活动成本库可以根据企业实际经营所发生的各种活动，灵活加以确定。它们可能包括设置调试机器、订货、材料处理、储存、发运、生产过程监管、供电等。对成本驱动因素（cost driver）的分析有助于确定把制造费用分配到各个产品或产品系列上的适当比率。

第二步是运用这些比率把成本库中的制造费用分摊到各个产品中。分摊成本要基于生产这个产品需要消耗的成本活动量。

The traditional approach to fixed overhead absorption has the merit of being simple to calculate and apply.However,simplicity does not justify the production and use of information that might be wrong or misleading.

传统成本方法对固定制造费用的归集比较简单粗暴，这种方法虽然简单，但是由此产生的成本信息很可能是错误的，容易对决策产生误导。

ABC undoubtedly requires an organisation to spend time and effort investigating more fully what causes it to incur costs,and then to use that detailed information for costing purposes.But understanding the drivers of costs must be an essential part of good performance management.

ABC costing无疑需要企业付出更多的时间、金钱和精力，以获得更精确可靠的信息，来用这些信息进行管理决策。但是对所发生的的成本的透彻理解也是一个好的绩效管理所必需的。

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