Abstract This paper presents empirical evidence from a three-year case study of target costing as a cost-management method, applied to a portfolio of products based on a modular product strategy. A review of research directed at target costing shows that target costing customarily focuses mainly on the variable manufacturing costs of new products (e.g., material and labor costs) and typically neglects targets for other costs, such as those for product development. Furthermore, target costing conventionally focuses on individual product development, disregarding cost interdependencies between products. We present an approach for extending the scope of traditional target costing. The proposed method (1) incorporates targets for cost elements that traditional target costing ignores (e.g., R&D) and (2) describes a partially coordinated approach that enables managing the costs of a portfolio of products, thereby extending the single-project approach of traditional target costing. A three-year case study at a car company resulted in empirical evidence for the applicability of the proposed cost-management method and offers a qualitative account of its effects on the product development process.

中文翻译：

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扩展目标成本以包括模块化产品组合的研发成本和生产投资目标——案例研究

摘要 本文提供了三年案例研究的实证证据，该案例研究将目标成本法作为一种成本管理方法，应用于基于模块化产品策略的产品组合。对针对目标成本的研究的回顾表明，目标成本通常主要关注新产品的可变制造成本（例如材料和劳动力成本），而通常忽略其他成本的目标，例如产品开发成本。此外，目标成本通常侧重于单个产品的开发，而忽略了产品之间的成本相互依赖性。我们提出了一种扩展传统目标成本计算范围的方法。建议的方法 (1) 结合了传统目标成本计算忽略的成本要素的目标（例如，R& D) 和 (2) 描述了一种部分协调的方法，可以管理产品组合的成本，从而扩展传统目标成本核算的单一项目方法。在一家汽车公司进行的为期三年的案例研究为所提议的成本管理方法的适用性提供了经验证据，并对其对产品开发过程的影响进行了定性说明。