The new cost system maintained highly detailed records to measure accurately the actual activity volume at each manufacturing operation and at each of the 600 cost centers. Performance reports were produce monthly to summarize actual versus authorized performance, but the information behind these reports were cautiously available, online, for immediate feedback. The detailed and accurate record keeping enable manufacturing variances to be easily explained. For example, and unfavorable cost center variance could be traced either to events at the center itself or back to secondary service/support center that had been reallocated to it.