A new route to the bottom line

Planners and managers may be prisoners of their companies' accounting systems and not even know it. This is particularly true in companies that can make a variety of products by alternative processes, facilities, or machines. In these companies, top management periodically has to make strategic choices as to which products should be emphasized and how limited raw materials and production capacities should be allocated to those products in the medium to long term. These decisions are most commonly based on convential accounting figures—product costs and profits—which are developed with much effort and in great detail in most companies. This article points out the fallacies of total reliance on accounting profits for product mix selection.