According to Swenson & Everaert (2012) [60] the target costing emphasizes cost reduction at the product design stage of the product development cycle, before most product costs are committed or “locked in.” Their active learning simulation demonstrates how a management theory is relevant to a business improvement initiative (target costing). As a part of the target costing simulation, student participants work in teams to address a business issue that cuts across functional boundaries. In addition to the accounting function, a target costing initiative requires participation from sales, marketing, and design engineering. Therefore, the simulation begins with the students learning how to build and develop an activity-based product cost for a model truck. In his study the some students are divided into teams and are instructed to reduce the truck’s cost through a re-design exercise, subject to certain customer requirements and quality constraints. Half of the teams are assigned a specific cost reduction target, and the other half instructed to reduce costs “as much as possible.” Students then strive to reduce the cost of the truck’s design by eliminating unnecessary parts, by using less expensive parts, and by using less part variety. As the student teams evaluate potential new designs, they actually use detailed activity cost information from the product costing system to guide their design decisions.