time is a crucial element in all phases of the value chain. World-class firms reduce time to market by compressing design, implementation, and production cycles. these firms deliver products or services quickly by eliminating non-value-added time, that is time of no value to the customer (for example the time a product spends on the loading clock). Interestingly, decreasing non-value-added time appears to go hand in hand with increasing quality. The overall objective, of course, is to increase Customer responsiveness.
The rate of technological innovation has increased for many industries, and the life of particular product can be quite short. Managers must be able to respond quickly and decisively to changing market conditions. Information to allow them to accomplish this must be available. For example, Hewlett-Packard has found that in is better to be 50 percent over budget in new product development than to be six months late. This correlation between cost and time is the kind of information that should be available from a management accounting information system.