The four basic activities in the production cycle: product design, planning and scheduling, production operations, and cost accounting. Although accountants are involved primarily in the fourth step, cost accounting, they also must understand the other three processes to be able to design reports that provide management with the information needed to manage the production cycle activities of a modern manufacturing company. for example, one popular approach to improving manufacturing performance, called Six sigma, begins with careful measurement and analysis of current processes in order to find ways to improve them. Accountants should participate in such efforts by helping to design accurate measures; their ability to do so, however, requires that they understand the production activities being measured.
This chapter explains how and organization's information system supports each of the production cycle activities. We begin by describing the design of the information system and the basic controls necessary to ensure that it provides management with reliable information to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of production cycle activities. We than discuss in detail.