Part one of term paper
In today's competitive economy, the cost structure is much more complex than that of the past, and there is a lot less room for error than that allowed in the more laid back economy of the past. Today's costing concerns arise from the growing disparity between direct and indirect product costs. American manufacturers have been pursuing a s ...

Part two of term paper
... marketing, sales, engineering, and order processing have dramatically increased. Overhead has grown to become the most expensive element of product cost structure. This might not be so bad if conventional product costing systems could handle the shift in cost structure. Unfortunately, they don’t. Most conventional systems allocate overhead based on some burdened rate (direct labor hours is a good example). This was acceptable when overhead was small and direct costs were high. But in today’s a ...