Gaining control of maintenance costs through effective tools and continuous process improvement requires aligning analytics, budgeting, scheduling, warranty, and mobility solutions. This allows visibility into costs and helps prioritize critical assets to focus spending. Analytics provide insights to optimize maintenance programs and budgets. Budgeting tools like zero-based budgets and revisions help manage costs. Effective planning and scheduling, such as focusing on critical equipment, can increase uptime and revenue while decreasing costs. Warranty management and mobility solutions can further reduce spending and increase efficiency.
Fixed Asset Controls and Reporting: Who's Paying Attention to Your Largest As...Duff & Phelps
Often an element of fraud and financial
misstatement, fixed assets get no
respect. Although they’re considered
low risk by auditors, fixed assets need
attention. Are the internal controls really
effective over this perceived low-risk
area? Best practices enhance proper
accounting, valuations and financial
reporting.
EY Technical Line - update on non-GAAP financial measuresJulien Boucher
In the nearly six months since the SEC staff updated its Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs) on non-GAAP financial measures, the staff has focused on compliance with that guidance in its reviews of earnings releases and SEC filings. The clear message is that companies need to reevaluate their use and presentation of non-GAAP financial measures. This publication discusses the SEC staff’s main areas of focus in comment letters seeking compliance with the updated C&DIs, changes companies have made to their disclosures and challenges companies are encountering with their non-GAAP disclosures.
Fixed Asset Controls and Reporting: Who's Paying Attention to Your Largest As...Duff & Phelps
Often an element of fraud and financial
misstatement, fixed assets get no
respect. Although they’re considered
low risk by auditors, fixed assets need
attention. Are the internal controls really
effective over this perceived low-risk
area? Best practices enhance proper
accounting, valuations and financial
reporting.
EY Technical Line - update on non-GAAP financial measuresJulien Boucher
In the nearly six months since the SEC staff updated its Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs) on non-GAAP financial measures, the staff has focused on compliance with that guidance in its reviews of earnings releases and SEC filings. The clear message is that companies need to reevaluate their use and presentation of non-GAAP financial measures. This publication discusses the SEC staff’s main areas of focus in comment letters seeking compliance with the updated C&DIs, changes companies have made to their disclosures and challenges companies are encountering with their non-GAAP disclosures.
Cost accounting systems should be a strategic partner in meeting your performance objectives. To do so requires maintenance and tuning - tasks that seem to have been forgotten. You've already made the investment in your cost accounting systems. Why would you not choose to utilize this important tool to its fullest advantage?
Sliding Oil Prices: Predicament or ProspectCognizant
Given the steep plunge in crude oil prices and resulting cash crunch, now is the perfect time for oil and gas companies to revisit their value tree and synchronize business and IT strategies.
Worried that you have too few applications? Convinced your run rate is as efficient as it could be? Congratulations: you are almost certainly unique.
According to Forrester Research1, "for IT operating budgets, enterprises spend two-thirds or more on ongoing operations and maintenance."
In order to deliver significant benefits, technology leaders need to do more than ‘tinker at the edges’ of the application portfolio.
In our direct experience there are significant benefits to be had from a strategic approach to application rationalisation: typically a 30% reduction in applications and 40% savings on annual costs (potentially tens of £ millions a year) are achievable through a considered analysis of your application portfolio.
Dynamics 365 Calendar for Finance Industry to Overcome the Most Common Challe...AppJetty
Explore how Dynamics 365 Calendar empowers the finance industry to overcome common challenges. Enhance resource management, optimize scheduling, and drive efficiency in financial operations.
Week 4 OverviewThis week we cover Budgets and Standard Cost Syst.docxjessiehampson
Week 4 Overview
This week we cover Budgets and Standard Cost Systems, of the text.
There are many advantages to budgeting and some of them are listed below:
· Budgets define goals and objectives that can serve as benchmarks for evaluating subsequent performance.
· Budgets coordinate the activities of the entire organization by integrating the plans of its various parts. Budgeting helps to ensure that everyone in the organization is pulling in the same direction.
· The budgeting process can uncover potential bottlenecks before they occur.
· The budgeting process provides a means of allocating resources to those parts of the organization where they can be used most effectively.
· Budgets force managers to think about the plan for the future. In the absence of the necessity to prepare a budget, many managers would spend all of their time dealing with day-to-day emergencies.
· Budgets communicate management’s plans throughout the organization.
When preparing a master budget you will want to prepare other budgets in the following order: sales budget, production budget, direct material budget, direct labor budget, manufacturing overhead budget, selling and administrative expense budget and cash budget.
Flexible budgets which takes into account how changes in activity affect costs. A flexible budget is an estimate of the revenues and costs that are expected given actual levels of activity. A flexible budget approach recognizes that budget can be adjusted to show what cost should be for the actual level activity. Remember, as you move forward, that all costs are not fixed. This is an error that is made in static budgeting.
Success factor training
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint-50,navpoint-51,navpoint-52,navpoint-5… 1/102
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint-50,navpoint-51,navpoint-52,navpoint-5… 2/102
LearningObjectives
After studying Chapter 6, you will be able to:
Understand the signi�icance of cost behavior to decision making and control.
Identify the interacting elements of cost-volume-pro�it analysis.
Explain the break-even equation and its underlying assumptions.
Calculate the effect on pro�its of changes in selling prices, variable costs, or �ixed costs.
Calculate operating leverage, determine its effects on changes in pro�it, and understand how
margin of safety relates to operating leverage.
Find break-even points and volumes that attain desired pro�it levels when multiple products are
sold in combination.
Obtain cost functions by account analysis, the engineering approach, the scattergraph approach,
and the high-low method.
6 Cost Estimation and Cost-Volume-Pro�itRelationships
Olga_Anourina/iStock/Thinkstock
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint- ...
ScenarioBranson Ltd. is a public listed tour company that is bas.docxjeffsrosalyn
Scenario
Branson Ltd. is a public listed tour company that is based in Melbourne. One of its main operating businesses is to provide tourists with hot-air balloon flights over the city. As their current balloons are due to be retired, they must decide whether to replace them with a large or small model. New balloons have an expected life of 8 years, after which salvage values are $70,000 for the large balloons and $45,000 for the small balloons. Market research has estimated that there is a 60% probability that demand will be high throughout the useful life of the balloons, and a 40% probability that demand will be low throughout the useful life of the balloons.
The large model is expected to cost $900,000, with an extra installation and shipping cost of $80,000. The small model is expected to cost $650,000, with an additional installation and shipping cost of $45,000. The company's accounting policy is to depreciate using the reducing balance approach of 20% per annum.1 There is also an initial increase in net working capital of $70,000 for the large model, and $40,000 for the small model. The net working capital is recoverable at the end of their useful life.
In the event of high demand, the company expects a yearly operating revenue of $800,000 for the large model, and a yearly operating revenue of $330,000 for the small model. If the demand is low, yearly operating revenue is forecasted to be $700,000 for the large model and $280,000 for the small model. Annual variable and fixed costs associated with operating these balloons are expected to be $400,000 for the large model and $150,000 for the small model. In addition, if the large model is preferred over the small model, the company needs to rent an additional warehouse to store the large balloons. A new warehouse’s rental cost is expected to be $150,000 per year. At the end of year four, there is also an option to cease operation and thus sell the large balloons for $500,000 and the small balloons for $400,000 if the business is not profitable.
The company requires you to calculate an appropriate discount rate using the company’s weighted average cost of capital. The company’s capital structure has remained fairly stable, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.2. The company has no plan to adjust its capital structure in the future. Given that the company is listed on the stock exchange, you are able to obtain the historical returns over the last 20 years for the company, the market portfolio and the risk-free asset as tabulated in Table 1. The company debentures have a face value of $1000 and a coupon rate of 10%. They mature in 10 years' time. Similar debentures are currently yielding 12%. The company tax rate is 30%.
1 As discussed in Week 5, ignore residual value in the calculation of yearly depreciation.
Table 1
Year
Branson
Market
Risk-free
1999
23.13%
13.81%
6.01%
2000
19.55%
12.77%
6.31%
2001
10.08%
7.65%
5.62%
2002
-19.35%
-10.64%
5.84%
2003
25.01%
14.61%
5.37%
2004
29.21%
29.
UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNEECBU 500D – BUSINESS FINANCEFINAL EXAM.docxouldparis
UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE
ECBU 500D – BUSINESS FINANCE
FINAL EXAM
DECEMBER 3, 2019
“STUDENT NAME”
A key difference between replacement and expansion project analyses is that with replacement, the incremental cash flows are measured as the net difference between projected cash flows from the current productive assets and cash flows of the proposed new productive assets.
True / False
The weighted average cost of capital increases if the total funds required call for an amount of equity in excess of what can be obtained as retained earnings.
True / False
Market risk refers to the tendency of a stock to move with the general stock market. A stock with above-average market risk will tend to be more volatile than an average stock, and it will have a beta which is greater than 1.0.
True / False
Other things held constant, an increase in financial leverage will increase a firm's market risk as measured by its beta coefficient.
True / False
The post-audit is a simple process in which actual results are compared to forecasted results and any discrepancy indicates a change in factors that are completely under management's control.
True / False
Short-term financing might be riskier than long-term financing because, during periods of tight credit, the firm might not be able to rollover (renew) its debt.
True / False
Effective capital budgeting can improve the timing of asset acquisition and the quality of assets purchased, thereby providing an opportunity to purchase and install assets before they are needed.
True / False
Since the degree of total leverage is equal to the degree of operating leverage times the degree of financial leverage, the degree of total leverage must always be greater than or equal to positive 1.0.
True / False
If the information content, or signaling, hypothesis is correct, then changes in dividend policy can be important with respect to firm value and capital costs.
True / False
A just-in-time system of inventory control requires that manufacturers coordinate production with suppliers so that raw materials or components arrive just as they are needed in the production process. The main objective of such a system is to reduce carrying costs.
True / False
The best and most comprehensive picture of a firm's liquidity position is obtained by examining its cash budget.
True / False
A firm’s goal should be to lengthen the cash conversion cycle since shorter cash conversion cycles leads firms to increase their dependence on costly external financing.
True / False
Conflicts between two mutually exclusive projects, where the NPV method chooses one project but the IRR method chooses the other, should generally be resolved in favor of the project with the higher NPV.
True / False
The primary goal of inventory management is to provide sufficient incentives to ensure that the firm never suffers a stock-out (i.e., runs out of an inventory item).
True / False
The ex-dividend date is the date on which a firm actually mails (funds) divid ...
Low-interest rates mean that P&C leadership teams are facing increasing pressure to generate heftier margins from their underwriting operations. More at http://gt-us.co/1japuAu
The Advantages of Budgeting A budget is a document that fo.docxtodd801
The Advantages of Budgeting
A budget is a document that forecasts the financial results and financial position of a business for
one or more future periods. At a minimum, a budget contains an estimated income statement that
describes anticipated financial results. A more complex budget also contains an estimated
balance sheet, which contains the entity’s anticipated assets, liabilities, and equity positions at
various points in time in the future.
A prime use of the budget is to serve as a performance baseline for the measurement of actual
results. Budgets may also be linked to bonus plans in order to direct the activities of various
company employees. A budget may also be used for both tax planning and treasury planning.
Despite these valid uses, there are also a number of problems with budgeting that have given rise
to a movement dedicated to the elimination of budgets.
Budgeting has been with us a long time, and is used by nearly every large company. They would
not do so if there were not some perceived advantages to budgeting. These advantages include:
▪ Planning orientation. The process of creating a budget takes management away from its
short-term, day-to-day management of a business and forces it to think longer-term. This is
the chief goal of budgeting, even if management does not succeed in meeting its goals as
outlined in the budget – at least it is thinking about the company’s competitive and
financial position and how to improve it.
▪ Model scenarios. If a company is faced with a number of possible paths down which it can
travel, you can create a set of budgets, each based on different scenarios, to estimate the
financial results of each strategic direction.
▪ Profitability review. It is easy to lose sight of where a company is making most of its
money, during the scramble of day-to-day management. A properly structured budget
points out which aspects of a business generate cash and which ones use it, which forces
management to consider whether it should drop some parts of the business or expand in
others. However, this advantage only applies to a budget sufficiently detailed to describe
profits at the product, product line, or business unit level.
▪ Assumptions review. The budgeting process forces management to think about why the
company is in business, as well as its key assumptions about its business environment. A
periodic re-evaluation of these issues may result in altered assumptions, which may in turn
alter the way in which management decides to operate the business.
▪ Performance evaluations. Senior management can tie bonuses or other incentives to how
employees perform in comparison to the budget. The accounting department then creates
budget versus actual reports to give employees feedback regarding how they are
progressing toward their goals. This approach is most common with financial goals,
though operational goals (such as reducing the scrap rat.
chapter 8Responsibility Concepts and Sound Decision-Maki.docxchristinemaritza
chapter 8
Responsibility Concepts and Sound
Decision-Making Analytics
Learning Objectives
• Understand concepts in responsibility accounting.
• Be able to provide a framework for rational business decision making, and understand
how to apply these concepts for specific types of situations.
• Apply capital budgeting methods and discounted cash flow concepts.
• Know how to make proper long-term investment decisions.
istockphoto
waL80281_08_c08_189-212.indd 1 9/25/12 1:03 PM
CHAPTER 8Section 8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
Chapter Outline
8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
Accumulation of Information to Match Centers
Management by Exception
Rational Decision Making
Sunk Costs
8.2 A General Framework for Making Sound Business Decisions
Applying the General Framework to an Example: Bulk Orders
Applying the General Framework to an Example: Offshoring
8.3 Capital Expenditures
Future Value
Annuity
Present Value
8.4 Making Decisions About Long-Term Investments
Net Present Value
Internal Rate of Return
Simpler Capital Budgeting Methods
Recap of Using Capital Budgeting Tools for Decision Making
8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
In general, managers should be held accountable for the results of their decisions and business execution. Without accountability based on performance-related feedback, the
business will not perform at its best, and areas in need of improvement may not be iden-
tified on a timely basis. Business feedback is often based on financial results. You have
already seen how budgets and variances are used to help identify areas for improvement.
Because managers are accountable for their decisions, actions, and outcomes, their perfor-
mance measures should align around the department, product, division, or other business
for which they are responsible. In other words, the attribution of responsibility tends to
follow the organizational structure of the business.
Sometimes, a business has a highly dispersed design, with decisions nested with lower
level managers. Other businesses generate decisions only at the upper levels, and
lower level personnel are basically charged with execution of defined actions. Proper
implementation of responsibility accounting concepts stipulates that performance mea-
sures be aligned with the business organization structure. In other words, accountability
should map to responsibility. Proper design of performance measurement systems there-
fore requires that the management accountant carefully consider the organizational struc-
ture. Sometimes performance measures are only appropriate on an aggregated basis, such
as where the organization is structured as a top–down, command-and-control, central-
ized decision-making entity. As lower level managers are given increased authority, so
too should the accountability system be modified to provide more disaggregated perfor-
mance measures. Although quite logical, this presents measurement challenges.
waL80281_ ...
Cost accounting systems should be a strategic partner in meeting your performance objectives. To do so requires maintenance and tuning - tasks that seem to have been forgotten. You've already made the investment in your cost accounting systems. Why would you not choose to utilize this important tool to its fullest advantage?
Sliding Oil Prices: Predicament or ProspectCognizant
Given the steep plunge in crude oil prices and resulting cash crunch, now is the perfect time for oil and gas companies to revisit their value tree and synchronize business and IT strategies.
Worried that you have too few applications? Convinced your run rate is as efficient as it could be? Congratulations: you are almost certainly unique.
According to Forrester Research1, "for IT operating budgets, enterprises spend two-thirds or more on ongoing operations and maintenance."
In order to deliver significant benefits, technology leaders need to do more than ‘tinker at the edges’ of the application portfolio.
In our direct experience there are significant benefits to be had from a strategic approach to application rationalisation: typically a 30% reduction in applications and 40% savings on annual costs (potentially tens of £ millions a year) are achievable through a considered analysis of your application portfolio.
Dynamics 365 Calendar for Finance Industry to Overcome the Most Common Challe...AppJetty
Explore how Dynamics 365 Calendar empowers the finance industry to overcome common challenges. Enhance resource management, optimize scheduling, and drive efficiency in financial operations.
Week 4 OverviewThis week we cover Budgets and Standard Cost Syst.docxjessiehampson
Week 4 Overview
This week we cover Budgets and Standard Cost Systems, of the text.
There are many advantages to budgeting and some of them are listed below:
· Budgets define goals and objectives that can serve as benchmarks for evaluating subsequent performance.
· Budgets coordinate the activities of the entire organization by integrating the plans of its various parts. Budgeting helps to ensure that everyone in the organization is pulling in the same direction.
· The budgeting process can uncover potential bottlenecks before they occur.
· The budgeting process provides a means of allocating resources to those parts of the organization where they can be used most effectively.
· Budgets force managers to think about the plan for the future. In the absence of the necessity to prepare a budget, many managers would spend all of their time dealing with day-to-day emergencies.
· Budgets communicate management’s plans throughout the organization.
When preparing a master budget you will want to prepare other budgets in the following order: sales budget, production budget, direct material budget, direct labor budget, manufacturing overhead budget, selling and administrative expense budget and cash budget.
Flexible budgets which takes into account how changes in activity affect costs. A flexible budget is an estimate of the revenues and costs that are expected given actual levels of activity. A flexible budget approach recognizes that budget can be adjusted to show what cost should be for the actual level activity. Remember, as you move forward, that all costs are not fixed. This is an error that is made in static budgeting.
Success factor training
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint-50,navpoint-51,navpoint-52,navpoint-5… 1/102
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint-50,navpoint-51,navpoint-52,navpoint-5… 2/102
LearningObjectives
After studying Chapter 6, you will be able to:
Understand the signi�icance of cost behavior to decision making and control.
Identify the interacting elements of cost-volume-pro�it analysis.
Explain the break-even equation and its underlying assumptions.
Calculate the effect on pro�its of changes in selling prices, variable costs, or �ixed costs.
Calculate operating leverage, determine its effects on changes in pro�it, and understand how
margin of safety relates to operating leverage.
Find break-even points and volumes that attain desired pro�it levels when multiple products are
sold in combination.
Obtain cost functions by account analysis, the engineering approach, the scattergraph approach,
and the high-low method.
6 Cost Estimation and Cost-Volume-Pro�itRelationships
Olga_Anourina/iStock/Thinkstock
8/21/2019 Print
https://content.ashford.edu/print/Schneider.4937.17.1?sections=navpoint-1,navpoint-48,navpoint-49,navpoint- ...
ScenarioBranson Ltd. is a public listed tour company that is bas.docxjeffsrosalyn
Scenario
Branson Ltd. is a public listed tour company that is based in Melbourne. One of its main operating businesses is to provide tourists with hot-air balloon flights over the city. As their current balloons are due to be retired, they must decide whether to replace them with a large or small model. New balloons have an expected life of 8 years, after which salvage values are $70,000 for the large balloons and $45,000 for the small balloons. Market research has estimated that there is a 60% probability that demand will be high throughout the useful life of the balloons, and a 40% probability that demand will be low throughout the useful life of the balloons.
The large model is expected to cost $900,000, with an extra installation and shipping cost of $80,000. The small model is expected to cost $650,000, with an additional installation and shipping cost of $45,000. The company's accounting policy is to depreciate using the reducing balance approach of 20% per annum.1 There is also an initial increase in net working capital of $70,000 for the large model, and $40,000 for the small model. The net working capital is recoverable at the end of their useful life.
In the event of high demand, the company expects a yearly operating revenue of $800,000 for the large model, and a yearly operating revenue of $330,000 for the small model. If the demand is low, yearly operating revenue is forecasted to be $700,000 for the large model and $280,000 for the small model. Annual variable and fixed costs associated with operating these balloons are expected to be $400,000 for the large model and $150,000 for the small model. In addition, if the large model is preferred over the small model, the company needs to rent an additional warehouse to store the large balloons. A new warehouse’s rental cost is expected to be $150,000 per year. At the end of year four, there is also an option to cease operation and thus sell the large balloons for $500,000 and the small balloons for $400,000 if the business is not profitable.
The company requires you to calculate an appropriate discount rate using the company’s weighted average cost of capital. The company’s capital structure has remained fairly stable, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.2. The company has no plan to adjust its capital structure in the future. Given that the company is listed on the stock exchange, you are able to obtain the historical returns over the last 20 years for the company, the market portfolio and the risk-free asset as tabulated in Table 1. The company debentures have a face value of $1000 and a coupon rate of 10%. They mature in 10 years' time. Similar debentures are currently yielding 12%. The company tax rate is 30%.
1 As discussed in Week 5, ignore residual value in the calculation of yearly depreciation.
Table 1
Year
Branson
Market
Risk-free
1999
23.13%
13.81%
6.01%
2000
19.55%
12.77%
6.31%
2001
10.08%
7.65%
5.62%
2002
-19.35%
-10.64%
5.84%
2003
25.01%
14.61%
5.37%
2004
29.21%
29.
UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNEECBU 500D – BUSINESS FINANCEFINAL EXAM.docxouldparis
UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE
ECBU 500D – BUSINESS FINANCE
FINAL EXAM
DECEMBER 3, 2019
“STUDENT NAME”
A key difference between replacement and expansion project analyses is that with replacement, the incremental cash flows are measured as the net difference between projected cash flows from the current productive assets and cash flows of the proposed new productive assets.
True / False
The weighted average cost of capital increases if the total funds required call for an amount of equity in excess of what can be obtained as retained earnings.
True / False
Market risk refers to the tendency of a stock to move with the general stock market. A stock with above-average market risk will tend to be more volatile than an average stock, and it will have a beta which is greater than 1.0.
True / False
Other things held constant, an increase in financial leverage will increase a firm's market risk as measured by its beta coefficient.
True / False
The post-audit is a simple process in which actual results are compared to forecasted results and any discrepancy indicates a change in factors that are completely under management's control.
True / False
Short-term financing might be riskier than long-term financing because, during periods of tight credit, the firm might not be able to rollover (renew) its debt.
True / False
Effective capital budgeting can improve the timing of asset acquisition and the quality of assets purchased, thereby providing an opportunity to purchase and install assets before they are needed.
True / False
Since the degree of total leverage is equal to the degree of operating leverage times the degree of financial leverage, the degree of total leverage must always be greater than or equal to positive 1.0.
True / False
If the information content, or signaling, hypothesis is correct, then changes in dividend policy can be important with respect to firm value and capital costs.
True / False
A just-in-time system of inventory control requires that manufacturers coordinate production with suppliers so that raw materials or components arrive just as they are needed in the production process. The main objective of such a system is to reduce carrying costs.
True / False
The best and most comprehensive picture of a firm's liquidity position is obtained by examining its cash budget.
True / False
A firm’s goal should be to lengthen the cash conversion cycle since shorter cash conversion cycles leads firms to increase their dependence on costly external financing.
True / False
Conflicts between two mutually exclusive projects, where the NPV method chooses one project but the IRR method chooses the other, should generally be resolved in favor of the project with the higher NPV.
True / False
The primary goal of inventory management is to provide sufficient incentives to ensure that the firm never suffers a stock-out (i.e., runs out of an inventory item).
True / False
The ex-dividend date is the date on which a firm actually mails (funds) divid ...
Low-interest rates mean that P&C leadership teams are facing increasing pressure to generate heftier margins from their underwriting operations. More at http://gt-us.co/1japuAu
The Advantages of Budgeting A budget is a document that fo.docxtodd801
The Advantages of Budgeting
A budget is a document that forecasts the financial results and financial position of a business for
one or more future periods. At a minimum, a budget contains an estimated income statement that
describes anticipated financial results. A more complex budget also contains an estimated
balance sheet, which contains the entity’s anticipated assets, liabilities, and equity positions at
various points in time in the future.
A prime use of the budget is to serve as a performance baseline for the measurement of actual
results. Budgets may also be linked to bonus plans in order to direct the activities of various
company employees. A budget may also be used for both tax planning and treasury planning.
Despite these valid uses, there are also a number of problems with budgeting that have given rise
to a movement dedicated to the elimination of budgets.
Budgeting has been with us a long time, and is used by nearly every large company. They would
not do so if there were not some perceived advantages to budgeting. These advantages include:
▪ Planning orientation. The process of creating a budget takes management away from its
short-term, day-to-day management of a business and forces it to think longer-term. This is
the chief goal of budgeting, even if management does not succeed in meeting its goals as
outlined in the budget – at least it is thinking about the company’s competitive and
financial position and how to improve it.
▪ Model scenarios. If a company is faced with a number of possible paths down which it can
travel, you can create a set of budgets, each based on different scenarios, to estimate the
financial results of each strategic direction.
▪ Profitability review. It is easy to lose sight of where a company is making most of its
money, during the scramble of day-to-day management. A properly structured budget
points out which aspects of a business generate cash and which ones use it, which forces
management to consider whether it should drop some parts of the business or expand in
others. However, this advantage only applies to a budget sufficiently detailed to describe
profits at the product, product line, or business unit level.
▪ Assumptions review. The budgeting process forces management to think about why the
company is in business, as well as its key assumptions about its business environment. A
periodic re-evaluation of these issues may result in altered assumptions, which may in turn
alter the way in which management decides to operate the business.
▪ Performance evaluations. Senior management can tie bonuses or other incentives to how
employees perform in comparison to the budget. The accounting department then creates
budget versus actual reports to give employees feedback regarding how they are
progressing toward their goals. This approach is most common with financial goals,
though operational goals (such as reducing the scrap rat.
chapter 8Responsibility Concepts and Sound Decision-Maki.docxchristinemaritza
chapter 8
Responsibility Concepts and Sound
Decision-Making Analytics
Learning Objectives
• Understand concepts in responsibility accounting.
• Be able to provide a framework for rational business decision making, and understand
how to apply these concepts for specific types of situations.
• Apply capital budgeting methods and discounted cash flow concepts.
• Know how to make proper long-term investment decisions.
istockphoto
waL80281_08_c08_189-212.indd 1 9/25/12 1:03 PM
CHAPTER 8Section 8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
Chapter Outline
8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
Accumulation of Information to Match Centers
Management by Exception
Rational Decision Making
Sunk Costs
8.2 A General Framework for Making Sound Business Decisions
Applying the General Framework to an Example: Bulk Orders
Applying the General Framework to an Example: Offshoring
8.3 Capital Expenditures
Future Value
Annuity
Present Value
8.4 Making Decisions About Long-Term Investments
Net Present Value
Internal Rate of Return
Simpler Capital Budgeting Methods
Recap of Using Capital Budgeting Tools for Decision Making
8.1 Responsibility Accounting Concepts
In general, managers should be held accountable for the results of their decisions and business execution. Without accountability based on performance-related feedback, the
business will not perform at its best, and areas in need of improvement may not be iden-
tified on a timely basis. Business feedback is often based on financial results. You have
already seen how budgets and variances are used to help identify areas for improvement.
Because managers are accountable for their decisions, actions, and outcomes, their perfor-
mance measures should align around the department, product, division, or other business
for which they are responsible. In other words, the attribution of responsibility tends to
follow the organizational structure of the business.
Sometimes, a business has a highly dispersed design, with decisions nested with lower
level managers. Other businesses generate decisions only at the upper levels, and
lower level personnel are basically charged with execution of defined actions. Proper
implementation of responsibility accounting concepts stipulates that performance mea-
sures be aligned with the business organization structure. In other words, accountability
should map to responsibility. Proper design of performance measurement systems there-
fore requires that the management accountant carefully consider the organizational struc-
ture. Sometimes performance measures are only appropriate on an aggregated basis, such
as where the organization is structured as a top–down, command-and-control, central-
ized decision-making entity. As lower level managers are given increased authority, so
too should the accountability system be modified to provide more disaggregated perfor-
mance measures. Although quite logical, this presents measurement challenges.
waL80281_ ...
Saudi Arabia stands as a titan in the global energy landscape, renowned for its abundant oil and gas resources. It's the largest exporter of petroleum and holds some of the world's most significant reserves. Let's delve into the top 10 oil and gas projects shaping Saudi Arabia's energy future in 2024.
Sachpazis:Terzaghi Bearing Capacity Estimation in simple terms with Calculati...Dr.Costas Sachpazis
Terzaghi's soil bearing capacity theory, developed by Karl Terzaghi, is a fundamental principle in geotechnical engineering used to determine the bearing capacity of shallow foundations. This theory provides a method to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity of soil, which is the maximum load per unit area that the soil can support without undergoing shear failure. The Calculation HTML Code included.
Overview of the fundamental roles in Hydropower generation and the components involved in wider Electrical Engineering.
This paper presents the design and construction of hydroelectric dams from the hydrologist’s survey of the valley before construction, all aspects and involved disciplines, fluid dynamics, structural engineering, generation and mains frequency regulation to the very transmission of power through the network in the United Kingdom.
Author: Robbie Edward Sayers
Collaborators and co editors: Charlie Sims and Connor Healey.
(C) 2024 Robbie E. Sayers
Event Management System Vb Net Project Report.pdfKamal Acharya
In present era, the scopes of information technology growing with a very fast .We do not see any are untouched from this industry. The scope of information technology has become wider includes: Business and industry. Household Business, Communication, Education, Entertainment, Science, Medicine, Engineering, Distance Learning, Weather Forecasting. Carrier Searching and so on.
My project named “Event Management System” is software that store and maintained all events coordinated in college. It also helpful to print related reports. My project will help to record the events coordinated by faculties with their Name, Event subject, date & details in an efficient & effective ways.
In my system we have to make a system by which a user can record all events coordinated by a particular faculty. In our proposed system some more featured are added which differs it from the existing system such as security.
CFD Simulation of By-pass Flow in a HRSG module by R&R Consult.pptxR&R Consult
CFD analysis is incredibly effective at solving mysteries and improving the performance of complex systems!
Here's a great example: At a large natural gas-fired power plant, where they use waste heat to generate steam and energy, they were puzzled that their boiler wasn't producing as much steam as expected.
R&R and Tetra Engineering Group Inc. were asked to solve the issue with reduced steam production.
An inspection had shown that a significant amount of hot flue gas was bypassing the boiler tubes, where the heat was supposed to be transferred.
R&R Consult conducted a CFD analysis, which revealed that 6.3% of the flue gas was bypassing the boiler tubes without transferring heat. The analysis also showed that the flue gas was instead being directed along the sides of the boiler and between the modules that were supposed to capture the heat. This was the cause of the reduced performance.
Based on our results, Tetra Engineering installed covering plates to reduce the bypass flow. This improved the boiler's performance and increased electricity production.
It is always satisfying when we can help solve complex challenges like this. Do your systems also need a check-up or optimization? Give us a call!
Work done in cooperation with James Malloy and David Moelling from Tetra Engineering.
More examples of our work https://www.r-r-consult.dk/en/cases-en/
Immunizing Image Classifiers Against Localized Adversary Attacksgerogepatton
This paper addresses the vulnerability of deep learning models, particularly convolutional neural networks
(CNN)s, to adversarial attacks and presents a proactive training technique designed to counter them. We
introduce a novel volumization algorithm, which transforms 2D images into 3D volumetric representations.
When combined with 3D convolution and deep curriculum learning optimization (CLO), itsignificantly improves
the immunity of models against localized universal attacks by up to 40%. We evaluate our proposed approach
using contemporary CNN architectures and the modified Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR-10
and CIFAR-100) and ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC12) datasets, showcasing
accuracy improvements over previous techniques. The results indicate that the combination of the volumetric
input and curriculum learning holds significant promise for mitigating adversarial attacks without necessitating
adversary training.
COLLEGE BUS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROJECT REPORT.pdfKamal Acharya
The College Bus Management system is completely developed by Visual Basic .NET Version. The application is connect with most secured database language MS SQL Server. The application is develop by using best combination of front-end and back-end languages. The application is totally design like flat user interface. This flat user interface is more attractive user interface in 2017. The application is gives more important to the system functionality. The application is to manage the student’s details, driver’s details, bus details, bus route details, bus fees details and more. The application has only one unit for admin. The admin can manage the entire application. The admin can login into the application by using username and password of the admin. The application is develop for big and small colleges. It is more user friendly for non-computer person. Even they can easily learn how to manage the application within hours. The application is more secure by the admin. The system will give an effective output for the VB.Net and SQL Server given as input to the system. The compiled java program given as input to the system, after scanning the program will generate different reports. The application generates the report for users. The admin can view and download the report of the data. The application deliver the excel format reports. Because, excel formatted reports is very easy to understand the income and expense of the college bus. This application is mainly develop for windows operating system users. In 2017, 73% of people enterprises are using windows operating system. So the application will easily install for all the windows operating system users. The application-developed size is very low. The application consumes very low space in disk. Therefore, the user can allocate very minimum local disk space for this application.
Cosmetic shop management system project report.pdfKamal Acharya
Buying new cosmetic products is difficult. It can even be scary for those who have sensitive skin and are prone to skin trouble. The information needed to alleviate this problem is on the back of each product, but it's thought to interpret those ingredient lists unless you have a background in chemistry.
Instead of buying and hoping for the best, we can use data science to help us predict which products may be good fits for us. It includes various function programs to do the above mentioned tasks.
Data file handling has been effectively used in the program.
The automated cosmetic shop management system should deal with the automation of general workflow and administration process of the shop. The main processes of the system focus on customer's request where the system is able to search the most appropriate products and deliver it to the customers. It should help the employees to quickly identify the list of cosmetic product that have reached the minimum quantity and also keep a track of expired date for each cosmetic product. It should help the employees to find the rack number in which the product is placed.It is also Faster and more efficient way.
Water scarcity is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two type of water scarcity. One is physical. The other is economic water scarcity.
1. Page 1 of 11
Empowering ERP Asset Management Solutions
Control your
maintenance costs
Align analytics, scheduling,
budgeting, warranty, and mobility
for maximum effect
By Sean Licata, VIZIYA Corp.
2. Gone are the days when business was so good that maintenance cost management
was off the radar. Economic headwinds have companies starting to rethink their cost
control strategies.
Maintenance cost visibility and management is crucial, particularly in industries where
a less than 10% swing in costs can mean the difference between surviving or not.
Mining and oil and gas illustrate this point. Two years ago, platinum in South Africa
was produced at $800 per ounce and sold for $2,400 per ounce. At the time,
maintenance spending was not a concern because profitability was assured. Now, with
suppressed commodities prices and out of control costs, platinum producers are
getting $810 per ounce. One mine has already been shut down as a consequence.
Traditional cost management practices are imprecise and reactive, sometimes
creating vast unintended consequences. Indiscriminate maintenance cuts that save
money in the short term can eventually cause more breakdowns and impact
production, safety and compliance. These ballooning costs can ultimately affect the
viability of the organization.
Because of this, maintenance professionals need to find new ways to save money, be
guardians of the company’s assets, and deliver revenue through asset optimization.
They need to gain control of the assets to ensure fewer breakdowns
and drive toward a more reliable plant.
Gaining control of maintenance costs is a team effort that requires
effective tools and continuous process improvement. It requires the
visibility afforded by aligning analytics, budgeting, scheduling,
warranty, and mobility tools that operate together as a natural
extension of the corporate financials and asset management
systems (ERP/EAM), greatly simplifying cost management.
This paper will summarize how to better control maintenance costs
by:
• Recognizing how maintenance influences performance and profitability
• Properly prioritizing maintenance work
• Taking actions based on analytics
• Applying optimal budgeting strategies
• Ensuring effective planning and scheduling
• Ramping up warranty practices
• Incorporating mobility solutions
• Employing the right tools
Gaining control of
maintenance costs is a team
effort that requires effective
tools and continuous
process improvement.
3. The relationship between maintenance and profitability
All too often, companies look at maintenance as a cost center, but if the assets are
not operational, no products or profit will be generated. In fact, every dollar spent on
maintenance is a pure profit dollar lost.
When a company can’t sell its product or get its price for the product, then the
maintenance budget becomes more important and costs need to be better managed.
Failure to do so can have severe consequences for the business and those in charge.
In one instance, because a company overspent on a
shutdown project by $20 million, the shutdown manager
was fired. Closer monitoring of costs can reveal
opportunities to improve uptime, reduce unplanned work,
and improve the organization’s bottom line.
Understand maintenance priorities
Given the impact of maintenance on profitability, heightened attention to
maintenance priorities is essential. The Pareto principle, or 80-20 rule, implies that
20% of equipment consumes 80% of maintenance costs. The reality is often worse
than this principle suggests. For many companies, less than 5% of critical assets are
responsible for more than 80% of maintenance costs. Focusing the maintenance
budget and effort on this 5% is necessary to effectively control costs.
Assigning asset criticality is the first step in keeping spending under control. This
reliability focused effort establishes an understanding of what equipment has the
greatest impact on production and costs. From there, steps can be taken to ensure
that the work performed on the critical equipment is of a critical nature; that the PM
schedule, PM operations and maintenance frequency are correct to ensure the most
uptime; and that critical parts and spares are on hand when needed.
Indeed, criticality designations improve cost management
at multiple levels, from making and managing budgets to
work planning and scheduling, inventory management, and
warranty management. However, to achieve the full
benefits of criticality analysis, tools that leverage this
valuable data are necessary.
Tie in analytics
Once the priorities are established, specific challenges and opportunities can be
isolated with key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting analytics. Analytics allow
“Every dollar spent on
maintenance is a pure profit
dollar lost.”
“Assigning asset criticality is
the first step in keeping
spending under control.”
4. organizations to see if downtime events or maintenance costs are trending upward
and affecting the bottom line, and to zero in on possible solutions.
Detailed reports identifying scheduling compliance or spending trends invite
questions about maintenance programs and efficiency. For example, are consistent
definitions of planned versus unplanned being utilized as a baseline? Root causes of
overspending can also be assessed and corrected – whether it’s changing operational
processes, vendor choices, staffing strategies, or other practices.
Analytics also provide feedback to improve overall costs by measuring against the
forecast and budget. The ultimate goal is to have predictive analytics allowing
budgets to be built not based on last year’s activity, but on what is occurring now and
expected going forward.
Align the budgeting strategy
From the analytics insight, specific budgeting decisions can be made. For instance, if
having an asset down for six hours costs $80,000 in production losses, it may make
sense to increase the maintenance budget tenfold if it will reduce the production loss
by half. A correlation between the number of inspections performed and the number
of failures on high criticality equipment can drive greater inspection funding. Reports
that show PdM is reducing downtime can justify an expansion of this approach.
The maintenance organization tends to drive the budget except when profitability
declines. Then, greater cost and budget control is needed and limits tend to be
dictated from above. Once the framework is established, budgeting tools and
strategies will influence how the costs are managed. Following are some examples.
Zero-based budgets
Zero-based budgets allow realistic costs to be forecasted based on historical PM data,
with a cushion to cover non-routine costs. If $90,000 was the average maintenance
spend in recent years, and $50,000 of that was for planned work and the balance was
unplanned or corrective, then that would be the zero base for the next budget year.
Reserve amounts would cover the non-routine (e.g., tank relining or railroad tie
changeover) and corrective (e.g., breakdown) maintenance tasks, and a contingency
cushion would account for cost inflation or overruns (e.g., labor or fuel).
Budget scenarios
Creating multiple budget scenarios gives management the ability to approve the
optimal choice. Budget scenarios illustrate the impact of the various proposals,
providing time to weigh the options and whether the risks are acceptable, and
factoring that into the decision.
5. Budget revisions
Throughout the year, budget forecasts will be revised to reflect variations between
the plans and actuals. Most companies update their forecasts quarterly, although
some industries perform revisions more frequently. In mining, for example, budgets
vary by commodity price. If gold is $1,000/oz then the budget will be higher than it
would be if gold dropped to $900/oz.
Budget revisions provide a way to control operating spend, as actual business
conditions will influence decisions on which maintenance plans to deactivate or add
back to the schedule. Budgeting systems that support multiple revision scenarios
ensure more thoughtful decisions.
Managing to the budget
The best budgeting systems provide a real-time view of where the money is spent as
the jobs are completed, and any unexpected costs and breakdowns as they occur.
Budgeting systems bring visibility to maintenance costs and
can prevent work plans that are unfunded or no longer
needed from inadvertently being scheduled. A South Africa
refinery wasted significant time and dollars when numerous
maintenance plans were loaded by mistake. Because the
plans were not validated or stopped, the work was
scheduled and executed, causing the refinery to exceed its
maintenance budget at a time when cuts were intended.
Any spending issues should be escalated before the work is completed. Ideally, the
ERP system will provide flags to warn when budgets are being exceeded or restrict
the overage altogether, and some scheduling systems will notify the scheduler when
the budget is running low. However, when there is no alignment between the job
plan, schedule and budget, it makes it very difficult to determine the actual state for
escalations.
If during the year the maintenance budget is cut or overspent, any reductions should
be applied to nonessential tasks, as lowering spending on critical assets would
increase risk and costs in the long run. A conveyor can be fed manually until it is fixed,
or a project to sandblast and repaint rusting tanks may be delayed for a year, or an oil
change frequency can be reduced.
Keeping management involved in the approval cycle and having the ability to roll up
costs for finance increases visibility and accountability corporate wide.
Expect the unexpected
In a perfect world, one budget owner would have complete control over all costs
charged to a budget, and anything beyond the original scope would have to be
From the analytics insight,
specific budgeting
decisions can be made.
6. approved by that owner. The reality is that multiple people can approve spending
against a budget. Most companies escalate work approvals based on a dollar value,
with higher amounts requiring sign-off by higher level approvers, and external
commitments can be made without the budget owner’s knowledge.
In some organizations, commitments can account for as much as half of the
maintenance spend, and that rate will grow if the outsourcing trend continues. These
service contracts and material purchases are not recorded until they become actuals,
when it is too late to control the costs. Furthermore, vendors who sit on the invoices
in order to make sales targets will delay cost recognition, further complicating budget
management. Some companies are countering this by self-invoicing.
Drive revenue and manage costs with effective planning
and scheduling
Now that the goals and budget strategies are aligned, work planning and scheduling
comes into focus. To keep spending on budget, work plans and schedules must be
carefully established, and adapted as circumstances change.
Planned work is always more cost effective than reactive, and even a marginal increase
in planned work can produce massive savings. Best practices dictate that 80% of work
is planned, because unplanned or corrective work is typically seven or eight times
more expensive than planned work. In other words, a $700-800 unplanned work order
would have cost only $100 if it were properly planned.
In best practice scheduling, at least half of the work is scheduled at least 30 days in
advance to ensure the parts, tools, staff and contractors are available when needed.
All costs on the work order (labor, material, contract time) reflect on the budget as
planned spend, and as the work orders are completed, the actuals, too, are reflected.
Scheduling practices also have the potential to drive
revenue gains. Filtering schedules to focus on critical assets
increases equipment availability, allowing more goods and
revenue to be generated.
Following are additional ways to improve work planning
and scheduling and generate maintenance savings.
PM optimization
It is not possible or even necessary to ensure 100% uptime. If maximum production
profitability is supported by 85% uptime, then an effective PM program will ensure
sufficient maintenance is performed so that downtime does not exceed 15%.
Planned work is always
more cost effective than
reactive.
7. In order for production reliability to improve and corrective maintenance costs to
decrease, the PM strategy itself must improve, whether it’s deploying a mobile
solution or predictive technologies, eliminating walkdown inspections that provide
little value, or hiring consultants to do reliability testing.
PM optimization begins by asking the right questions. Is the right work being done at
the right time on the right assets? Putting higher emphasis on the most critical assets
may increase the output that can be sold for a profit. Is the frequency of PM tasks
optimal? Skipping one oil change day per year may save labor and material costs and
prevent taking the equipment out of service, but it could eventually increase the risk
of failure-induced downtime, which raises maintenance costs and reduces production.
Work order quality checks
Work order quality checks are effective for cost control because they improve job
starts and compliance, and reduce operational risks. Specifically, they make sure the
work is properly planned, because a poor description, incorrect hours or missing parts
means the technician won’t be able to complete the task, and their time will have
been wasted when other priority work could have been accomplished.
Work order quality checks are also the last chance to determine whether the job still
fits within the budget, so it can be blocked from the scheduling cycle or sent for a
higher level of approval if needed.
Inventory optimization
For optimal inventory planning, criticality assignments are carried into the bills of
materials (BOM) so those stock levels receive extra attention. This helps to minimize
the desire of maintenance personnel to hide away critical spares for fear that they
won’t be in inventory when needed. During a cleanup at one company, $400 million
in stock value was found in drawers, under desks, and in offices for this reason.
For non-critical spares, a just-in-time approach is more efficient. Min/max thresholds
and economic reorder points are useful for ensuring the inventory levels are correct
and spending is focused on current needs. Sufficient lead time protects against higher
prices for last minute purchases, and also supports scheduling compliance by ensuring
the parts are available on time.
Resource optimization
Resource planning is another cost containment strategy, as improving utilization of
resources can minimize overtime and contractor costs.
Best practices suggest having 80% FTE on staff and 20% contractors, although this
ratio has moved in waves with the rise and ebb in outsourcing. Benefits costs are
avoided with contractors, but they lack the long-term knowledge base of staff
personnel, making them less effective and more costly in the long run. On the other
8. hand, it is too expensive to rely wholly on staff labor and more difficult to make cuts
in a downturn. Mentoring and apprentice programs are recommended to balance the
exodus of the aging workforce and influx of young recruits.
Improperly structured or managed manpower contracts are a source of high costs. If
someone creates a purchase requisition for contract services and bypasses the
maintenance work order, then the contractors’ time is more difficult to manage and
track. Setting up contracts in man hours instead of days eliminates confusion over
whether 24-hour days or 8-hour days were intended. Leveling out the contractor
requirements is another cost containment strategy.
A cost-effective contract cannot be negotiated without concrete requirements from
the maintenance organization. The scheduling and management of contract resources
should mirror the processes used with internal personnel to maximize their
productivity.
Use warranties for more than just cost recovery
Another pillar of cost control is warranty tracking and management. The obvious goal
of warranty tracking is to claim and get credit for in-warranty repairs in order to return
the costs to the budget, but the greater benefit is in providing the ability to start
eliminating warranties altogether.
In smaller companies, warranties are often ignored because
the potential revenue is relatively small. In certain regions like
the Middle East, even the largest organizations overlooked
this earnings opportunity until relatively recently. The global
economic slowdown forced more attention on warranties by
companies across the board. On average, 3-5% of
operational spend is returned with effective warranty
management. For companies with a 7-8% profit margin,
getting 5% of operational spend back in warranty recovery is
especially significant.
Far greater savings result from enabling companies to reassess how they choose,
evaluate, and negotiate with suppliers. For example, a cable manufacturer is not as
concerned about recovering the cost of a $10,000 failed motor when $400,000 in
cable had to be thrown away because it caused production to shut down in the middle
of a run. If an asset fails too often, the contract may not be renewed. If reliability is
high, the procurement negotiator may be willing to increase the contract or pay more
for it.
On average, 3-5% of
operational spend is
returned with effective
warranty management.
9. Save time and money with mobility
Also important to maintenance cost management is the efficiency of the mobile
workforce. Increasingly sophisticated mobile solutions are generating hard dollar
savings, higher compliance, greater communication throughout the organization, and
benefits from real-time data input.
Maintenance planners can use mobile technology to scope and plan a job at the same
time, while still in the field. Maintenance planners at a fertilizer producer are saving
roughly 30 minutes per work order and improving the overall quality of work by using
mobile devices to plan work orders, take pictures, and add notes and instructions.
Mobility allows the crafts to spend more time adding value and less time sitting at a
computer terminal. It saves them from relying on memory or hand-written notes to
enter (or have a clerk enter) high-quality, accurate work order or quality plan
information later in a computer. Instead, the data is captured on the spot on a
handheld device while the knowledge is still fresh. The savings can add up very
quickly.
When a mobile device is brought to the job site, maintenance technicians have the
supporting documents, drawings and instructions readily available, which improves
safety, efficiency and job starts. In breakdown or emergency situations, a technician
can see at a glance if the problem asset is categorized as critical and proactively create
a work request or work order, attach pictures, request parts, and create alerts rather
than waiting until later and possibly forgetting to do so. This real-time response
expedites corrective action and shortens downtime by as much as a day.
Mobility also allows for more and better quality plan or maintenance plan inspections
without adding additional staff. The information is more timely, for instance the
immediate reporting of a leak. And, it assures a safer work environment with fewer
breakdowns and less reactive work.
From a management standpoint, mobile solutions provide ready awareness of where
each technician is physically, the progress on their workload, and how much of their
work day is actually spent on wrench time. Too little wrench time is common but can
be improved with the right tools and processes.
Inventory practices are also improved by mobility. Storeroom personnel performing
cycle counts or picking parts for multiple work orders can log the information as they
go, rather than writing it down and entering it in a computer later. The data is more
current and accurate, which contributes to better assignment of min/max values and
reorder points.
10. Choose the right tools
The potential for analytics, budgeting, scheduling, warranty management, and
mobility to improve maintenance costs rides on the tools used. VIZIYA’s WorkAlign
product suite, a single-source solution, is a robust and tightly integrated portfolio that
is unique in its functionality and ease of use. The VIZIYA WorkAlign suite integrates
with all of the leading maintenance systems in real time –
including Oracle eAM, JDE CAM, Peoplesoft CAM, SAP
PM, IBM Maximo, Infor, and EMPAC.
• WorkAlign Analytics calculates and presents crucial
metrics, allowing companies to monitor progress
against business objectives and optimize their
software, processes, and business results.
• WorkAlign Maintenance Budgeting automatically creates budgets based on
existing work plans, and supports zero-based budgeting for unplanned work.
It has the ability to assure adequate budgets for critical assets and establish
tighter limits for lower priority assets.
• WorkAlign Scheduler allows maintenance supervisors and planners to easily
filter down to the most urgent jobs for the most critical assets in a particular
location, and make better planning and scheduling decisions. It also manages
resource availability for employees and contractors, with or without an HR
interface.
• WorkAlign Warranty Tracker flags work orders that have warranty coverage
and presents a claim for users to review and submit. It also provides
knowledge of critical equipment that routinely fails in early life so that vendor
choices and purchasing decisions can be improved.
• WorkAlign Mobile puts essential data in the hands of users in the field to
ensure awareness of priorities, and simplifies work execution and data
collection, such as entering failure codes, inventory transactions, or new work
requests.
Remember, the “right” solution is one that is fully functional and inherently easy to
use, so the users will willingly and proactively use it to control their maintenance
spend. VIZIYA designed its solutions to this high standard so that maximum benefits
can be achieved.
The potential to improve
maintenance costs rides on
the tools used.
11. About VIZIYA
Headquartered in Hamilton, ON, with offices in Barcelona, Perth, Atlanta and Dubai,
VIZIYA is the industry leader providing bolt-on software products to enhance ERP-
based asset maintenance systems. VIZIYA’s proprietary WorkAlign™ Product Suite
delivers seamless integration into existing ERP systems. With over 45,000 users at 740
sites across 6 continents, the world’s best companies use VIZIYA products to help
them better maintain their assets. Visit viziya.com for more information.