How a Global Manufacturer Cut Costing Errors by 30% and Reclaimed 40% of Analyst Time with Standardized Processes

Best Places to Work in US; The Company’s vision was to build a scalable, data-driven supply chain that could support global growth. Client knew that without standardized costing processes, they couldn’t scale efficiently or trust margins. Company’s vision was to build a consistent, governed approach to costing that would support growth, reduce manual work, and give our teams real-time insights they can act on.

Client: New England based Industrial Manufacturing
Industry: Plasma-Laser Cutting
Size: 5000+ employees globally

Location: New Hampshire

Challenges:

Manufacturing and Costing Teams consistently had issues with its costing processes:

No standard costing playbook	Four plants were using three different cost-allocation methods, creating $1.8 M in annual re-work and audit adjustments.
Diffuse ownership	Questions about cost rates bounced between finance, operations, and IT—each issue averaged 5 hand-offs before landing on the right desk.
Little training or documentation	Fewer than 30 % of planners could explain how variances were calculated, leading to “mystery margins” every month close.
Minimal tooling & alerts	Variances > ±10 % weren’t flagged until quarterly reviews; by then scrap write-offs had already climbed 12 %.

Action:

Over a 16-week sprint the team replaced ad-hoc fixes with a company-wide, future-proof model:
Mapped value-added activities end-to-end, revealing that 28 % of analysts’ time was spent chasing unexplained variances.
Published one global SOP library—42 concise documents covering SKU creation through period-end close, backed by bite-sized video refreshers.
Defined a Costing Vision & governance model: clear RACI, monthly scorecards, and an escalation path cutting issue resolution from days to hours.
Stood up a real-time costing dashboard with automated variance alerts at ±5 %, giving plant managers a daily “red/yellow/green” view.
Trained 215 users (shop floor to CFO) via role-based workshops; each attendee left with a laminated “costing cheat-sheet.”

Results :

Here is the comparison between Before vs. After Costing Standardization across Company

Metric	Before	After	Benefit
Data-entry errors in item costs	1 in 20	1 in 115	↓ 30 % errors—validated by two consecutive clean audits
Overhead misallocation	± 12 % swing	± < 3 % swing	↓ 20 % misallocations; $740 k annual savings
Time spent resolving costing issues	125 hrs / mo	20 hrs / mo	↓ 84 %—freeing analysts for value-add work
Variances detected proactively	Quarterly	Daily	15 % drop in potential cost overruns
Access control violations	7 flagged / yr	0	100 % risk elimination on sensitive cost tables

Client Testimonial

“For the first time, everyone—from line supervisors to finance—speaks the same costing language. Issues surface instantly, ownership is crystal-clear, and we’ve gained back hundreds of hours a year to focus on margin improvement instead of firefighting.”

— Cost Controller

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