The document discusses the benefits of activity-based costing (ABC) over traditional cost systems for manufacturing companies. ABC allocates costs more accurately by tracing costs to the activities that consume resources, rather than assigning costs based on direct labor hours or machine hours. This allows companies to identify unprofitable products, customers, and processes. While ABC adoption rates are still limited, surveys show it has been widely adopted by large companies and provides more useful information for decision-making than traditional cost systems.