Books
Target Cost Management:
The Ladder of Global Survival and Success
With a proven track record for helping companies achieve critical cost reductions without sacrificing customer satisfaction, target costing provides managers and executives with the tools to survive and prosper in today’s increasingly competitive market—without raising prices.
Target Cost Management: The Ladder to Global Survival and Success details the preliminary steps required for a company to institutionalize target costing and the two necessary ingredients of target costing—proper organizational structure and cost tables. It describes and shows the interrelationships of the major techniques, tools, and methodologies needed to achieve the ultimate success.
Jim Rains shares powerful insights harvested during his two decades of studying and benchmarking target costing for leading Japanese corporations. Supplying the understanding and the tools to achieve critical cost reductions while maintaining and even improving customer satisfaction, this book explains the steps needed to reap the rewards of constant, consistent, acceptable and predictable levels of profitability.”
“This is the tool that links product development to lean manufacturing and supply chain management. Target costing is one of the hidden treasures of companies like Toyota and Honda. Cost is not something you get when you add up the parts, it is an intentional criterion for design. We are very fortunate that Jim Rains is bringing this precious information to us all.”
—Jeffrey K. Liker, Ph.D., Author of The Toyota Way
“For companies to be great they need target costing. Target costing is essential to understand and manage cost and to reap high levels profit. It is used by most great companies in Japan. Target costing in conjunction with value engineering is necessary to maintain consistent levels of profitability. This book's concept of climbing a ladder to reach target costing and requiring all the elements on each rung to be in and remain in place during the climb is essential to success.”
—Masayasu Tanaka, Ph.D., CVS, FSAVE, Professor, Graduate School of Business and Management, Mejiro University; Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of Science: and Doctor of Cost & Profit Engineering
“Rains’ book is a must read for every business executive interested in global success. His extensive knowledge of Japanese productivity processes including the relationship between value engineering and target costing is evident in the book. This book from a respected world leader in value engineering provides the inspiration and details on how to incorporate target costing in your organization.”
—Don J. Gerhardt, Ph.D., CVS, Former Director of Value Engineering, Ingersoll-Rand; and President, Gerhardt Engineering
