An example of how ABC can identify value-added and non-value-added is illustrated with The Doig Corporation. Bob Doig, CEO, implemented ABC to help with his company’s continued improvement to quality processes. We were able to identify which tasks we were doing for no apparent reason, then simplified some of those tasks. Some of the tasks are mandatory – such as driving to a customer location to make a sales call – but the process got Doig and his team thinking about which customers could be served just as well by phone, thus saving both time and money for the sales reps and the company as a whole (7). Doig utilized his ABC system to better understand his company’s operations by relying on the new, more reliable data. Thanks to ABC, using activities and allocating more indirect expenses allows Doig, as well as other executives, to better document costing.
Horngren, Datar and Foster compare and contrast the traditional costing method with activity-based costing using a cost analysis of baked goods, milk and fruit juice, and frozen products for a supermarket. First the supermarket must identify the activities and their rates that affect the cost of their chosen products