HI5017 Managerial Accounting: ABC Costing at Sirtex Medical

This report assesses the suitability of Activity-Based Costing (ABC) for Sirtex Medical Limited, a company focused on innovative medical solutions. It explains ABC's features, contrasting it with traditional costing methods, and argues that ABC offers a more accurate allocation of manufacturing overhead costs, crucial for strategic decision-making in a technology-driven environment. The report recommends that Sirtex Medical adopt ABC and outlines steps for effective implementation, including data collection and structural reorganization. Additionally, it suggests the implementation of a balanced scorecard for comprehensive performance evaluation, considering both financial and non-financial aspects. The report concludes that improved costing methods, like ABC, are essential for accurate pricing and achieving corporate objectives.

Holmes Institute
HI5017 Managerial Accounting
Trimester 1 2018
Individual Assignment
Student Name
Date

Executive Summary
This report is mean to evaluate the Activity based costing model and its suitability to Sirtex
Medical limited. As a company that relies in innovation for delivery of quality services Sirtex
limited is passed the use of the traditional costing system. Its therefore recommended that
the management of the company embrace the activity-based costing system this will assist
allocate the manufacturing costs in a more accurate manner. Such a decision will enhance
proper strategic decision making and implementation.

Contents
Contents.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction...............................................................................................................................4
Explanation of ABC and its features...........................................................................................4
Suitability of ABC to the company’s current goals and strategies.............................................5
Sirtex Medical mission and objectives...................................................................................5
Sirtex Medial corporate strategies.........................................................................................6
How ABC can be effective in achieving the company’s strategies.........................................6
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................7
Other management accounting tools suitable for the company...............................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Having recently heard about the activity-based costing the CEO of Sirtex Medical limited
approached our firm the Harlequin management consultancy limited for assistance. In this
regard I was appointed as the head of a team which was to evaluate the Activity based
Costing system and give a report on its suitability to the firm. This report is therefore
designed to give a view of the ABC model, its suitability to Sirtex as well as recommendation
to the firm on the way forward. The report will thereafter be closed by a suggestion of an
additional accounting tool that is also appropriate for use by tie firm and its justification.
Explanation of ABC and its features
Activity based costing is a costing system that allocates the overhead costs of manufacturing
to the activities that are associated with the production process. After allocating the
overhead to the activities the costs of the activities are summed to estimate the cost of
making the product (Douglas, 2002). The costing system is based on the notion that
products manufacturing consumes activities while the activities consume resources.
The costing system allocates the overhead costs in a more logical manner if compared to the
traditional costing system. In the traditional costing system costs are simply allocated based
on machine hours. In the activity-based costing system costs are first assigned to the
activities which are the primary cause of the overheads, afterwards these costs are allocated
to the products that had consumed the activities (Hilton, 2006).
For instance, will illustrate the activity-based costing application in a two-product
manufacturing situation within a single company. Product A is a low volume product which
demand some activities like special engineering, several machine set-ups and additional
testing since it is ordered in small quantities. On the other hand, a similar product item B is a
high-volume product which is running continuously. This product requires minimal attention
and no form of special activities. Should a firm allocate overheads in this scenario using the
traditional costing system it might allocate the total indirect costs based on machine hours.
This way very minimal overhead will be allocated to product A since it failed to consume
many machine hours (Blocher, 2006). The result will be product A will be allocated a little
overhead cost than should be the case. This product even though consumed a little,
machine hours, demanded lots of engineering, set-up activities and testing which the

traditional costing system have ignored. On the other hand, product B will be allocated a
huge amount of overhead costs due to the large amount of machine hours involved. This
though fails to consider that the product demanded little overhead activity compared to
product A. the outcome will be a miscalculation of both the cost of A and B. by using the
activity-based costing system the company can overcome this shortcoming by assigning
overheads on all the activities that the products consumed (Cokins, 2010).
The use of activity-based costing will recognise the machine set-ups, special testing, special
engineering and all other activities that were involved in the products’ manufacturing since
this activity led to resource consumption. Under the ABC model the firm will evaluate the
costs of the resources that each activity consumed, afterwards, the cost of each activity will
be allocated to the specific product that utilised the activity. In the case above product A
will be allocated some of the company costs that were consumed by special engineering.
Machine set-ups and special testing. Other products which might have consumed these
activities will also be assigned a portion. The product B on the other hand will likely be
allocated the portion of the cost that was consumed in machine hours and a small part of
machine set-up.
The use of activity based costing have grown in popularity in the recent times since: the
manufacturing overhead costs have increased significantly with the increase in technological
advancement, the manufacturing overhead costs are becoming independent of productive
machine hours and direct labour hours consumed, there have been a growth in products
and consumers’ diversity and lastly some products are manufactured in large batches while
others are manufactured in small batches (Kumar & Mahto, 2013).
Suitability of ABC to the company’s current goals and strategies
Sirtex Medical mission and objectives
Sirtex Medical is a medical service firm which is a resident company of Australia. The firm
specialises in providing radioactive treatment for inoperable liver cancer known as SIR-
Spheres microspheres (Drugs.com MedNews, 2008).
The mission of Sirtex Medical is to improve the quality and longevity of patient’s lives by
offering innovative and interventional encology solutions. To achieve this mission the
company strives to put in place an internal working process that put the patient lives at the

forefront of their priorities. The firm gives weight to respect to their clients while at the
same time putting paramount importance to the safety of the clients, employees as well as
other healthcare professionals.
By developing innovations, the firm strives to constantly come up with advance and new
ways of offering quality healthcare services. The use of technology is a vital tool that the
company relies on when it comes to advancing both the employees output as well as
management performance (SIRTEX, 2018).
Sirtex Medial corporate strategies
Sirtex Medical is an Australian company which has been approved to offer cancer treatment
internationally. The firm’s primary commercial product is the targeted radioactive treatment
meant for liver cancer. The firm have managed to offer over 86000 doses of SIT spheres Y-90
resin microspheres to combat the liver cancer menace in over 1160 medical centres across
over 40 nations. The products have been approved by the U.S food and drug administration,
the EU as well as Australian Therapeutic goods administration. The Sirtex limited company
currently have a manufacturing centre in the US, Germany as well as Singapore. With the
massive investment in technology the firm have put in a vital strategy for continuously
coming up with innovative ways to combat newly arising cases in medical care especially in
the fight to combat the rapid spreading of the cancer pandemic (SIRTEX, 2018).
How ABC can be effective in achieving the company’s strategies
Based on the advancements of technology the manufacturing environment in the modern
business world have become more capital intensive than the historical labour-intensive
production environment. In this scenario automatic machines and computer monitored
operations have replaced most of the workforce and direct labour which used to form a
bigger part of the manufacturing process. In the Sirtex limited the firm’s concentration in
technological innovation as a tool for offering advance medical solution have meant an
increase in the costs incurred in machinery as well as maintenance expenses. As technology
continue to replace the use of direct manpower the proportion overheads that are
consumed in the production sector is increasingly going up as the direct labour cost reduces.
Costs such as set-up, inspection labour, quality control, quality assurance, procurement,
selling and marketing as well as product testing have of recent dominated the
manufacturing sector of the Sirtex limited (Schulze, et al., 2012).

This increase in overhead have brought complexities in allocating the costs to a given
product being that most of the overheads are frequently shared by several products and
cannot be identified to a single item with ease. In the traditional overhead allocation
process, this cost was generally assigned using the production volume or direct labour
consumed as the bases. This allocation base is no longer relevant as they do not address the
origin of the overhead in the advancing manufacturing environment. Applying the
traditional costing system to allocate costs will mean the management of the Sirtex limited
will come up with distorted costs that do not address the real volume of resources
consumed while producing the units or offering the services. In cases where the overhead
costs were small like in the traditional labour-intensive production set ups the distortion
was minimal and could be ignored. Of late the growth in the manufacturing overhead meant
its now a major component of product cost and Sirtex cannot accommodate irrelevant
estimations.
This calls for modern coting systems to assist solve the loophole left by the traditional cost
allocation system. The use of activity-based costing has been approved by various
researchers to offer the best solution to the issue. The Sirtex medical through efficient
allocation of costs using the ABC model can come up with more accurate and reliable
manufacturing costs than before.
Recommendations
After an intensive evaluation of the structure, strategies and objectives of the Sirtex Medical
Limited in addition to the features of the activity-based costing, its recommended that the
hospital management should consider putting the system in place. Accepting the use of the
ABC costing model will enable the company to significantly improve on its costing system
with this there is an assurance of making informed strategic steps. To incorporate the
system effectively the Sirtex management team need to do the following:
 Implement a data collection system that will record all the activities taking place in
the firm which are relevant to service provision and product manufacturing.
 The firm should reorganise its structure in a way that the activities taking place
under each department are recorded to be applied in allocating costs to the
departments.

Other management accounting tools suitable for the company
Other than considering the implementation of the activity-based costing system the
management of Sirtex Medical should consider putting in place a balance scorecard. This is a
strategic management performance evaluation tool that makes use of semi standard
structured reports to assist the manages keep track of the activities’ execution by the
employees. Through its use the management team can evaluate the business performance
and take a corrective measure where necessary. The primary features of the balance
scorecard model involve:
 It gives more focus to the strategic agendas of the firm.
 It selects a sample of small data to monitor.
 It monitors both the financial as well as the non-financial aspects of the firm.
The use of balanced scorecard can be a big improvement to the managers of Sirtex limited if
integrated in the firm. The management tool will give the managers a view of the future
financial viability by evaluating all the areas that are relevant to the positive performance of
the firm. This includes: consumer perspectives, financial perspectives, internal business
operations perspectives as well as technical knowhow perspectives. Stressing in the use of
balance scorecard will remedy the company from the limitations of traditional performance
measurements tools which only focuses on the financial aspects and therefore ignore all the
other vital areas. Sirtex limited is an organization that build its operations around technical
innovation. This is an area that is continuously changing and need a lot of focus to estimate
appropriate strategic plans. This way the use of balance scorecard will perfectly fit in the
company’s strategic performance measurement.
Conclusion
Costing is the first stage to product and service pricing. On the other hand, the pricing of
products and services will define how the company delivers its corporate objectives
profitability being a core part. The use of traditional costing systems has been bypassed by
events and the advanced manufacturing set-up of Sitex limited cannot incorporate the
traditional costing system efficiently. For the company to remain relevant it is vital for the
firm to accept the use of activity-based costing to accurately price its products and
formulate relevant strategic plans.

The managers of the Sirtex limited by applying the use of the ABC costing system will be
able to accurately allocate the overhead costs incurred in the manufacturing process
through evaluation of activities taking place in the firm.
In addition, the organisation by using ABC model will be in a good position to minitour
activities consuming the company resources and are therefore able to regulate those which
are non-profitable but consumes a lot of resources.

References
Blocher, E., 2006. Cost Management: A Strategic Approach. 5th ed. New York: McGrawHill
Hill.
Cokins, G., 2010. Implementing Activity-Based Costing, New Jersey: Institute of Management
Accountants.
Douglas, T. H., 2002. Activity-Based Costing: Making It Work for Small and Mid-Sized
Companies. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Drugs.com MedNews, 2008. SIR-Spheres Microspheres Featured at the 2008 Society of
Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting. [Online]
Available at: https://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/sir-spheres-microspheres-featured-
2008-society-nuclear-medicine-annual-meeting-4802.html
[Accessed 27 May 2018].
Hilton, R. W., 2006. Cost Management: Strategies for Business Decisions. 3rd ed. New York, :
McGraw-Hill.
Kumar, N. & Mahto, D., 2013. A Comparative Analysis and Implementation of Activity Based
Costing (ABC) and Traditional Cost Accounting (TCA) Methods in an Automobile Parts
Manufacturing Company: A Case Study. Global Journal of Management and Business
Research Accounting and Auditing, 13(4), pp. 1-11.
Schulze, M., Seuring, S. & Ewering, C., 2012. Applying activity-based costing in a supply chain
environment. nt. J. Production Economics , Volume 135, pp. 715-125.
SIRTEX, 2018. Company Overview. [Online]
Available at: https://www.sirtex.com/us/investors/company-overview/
[Accessed 27 May 2018].
SIRTEX, 2018. Mission and Values. [Online]
Available at: https://www.sirtex.com/us/investors/company-overview/mission-and-values/
[Accessed 27 May 2018].