Abstract

Managing cost of production is at the heart of survival of present day corporations, as increased competition, uncertainty and risk present in the operating environment pose challenges for 21^st century managers. This empirical paper examines product cost management strategies by adopting and implementing the Kaizen Costing System. The sample size of the study was 60 respondents comprising accountants distributed across product and service sector organisations in Anambra State, south-eastern Nigeria. Three hypotheseswere formulated and tested in the study. In addition to descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U, Kolmogorov-Smirnoff and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) were used in analyzing the primary data. The results ofthe data analysis showed that implementing a Kaizen Costing System would provide managers with strategies for reducing material procurement and usage costs, and also reduce labour utilization cost. Respondents also perceived a link between cost reduction strategies at the minimal batch production phase and the maximum batch production phase. Based on this, the study recommends that Nigerian manufacturing firms should adoptand implementthe Kaizen Costing System, this should however not be done in isolation as such a system would require corporate strategy overhaul and alignment, a kaizen culture was suggested as counterpart in the system implementation for incorporation at the strategic level.

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