Lean Accounting: Current State and Future Needs Assessment

Abstract

Lean practitioners use a various performance assessment and control metrics. Anecdotal evidence suggests some cost accounting metrics do not serve lean practitioners well. This recognition has led to the recent emergence of lean accounting. This paper focuses on the impetus for its emergence. The limitations of current cost accounting practices as they pertain to lean practitioners are identified and explained. The content is not to suggest a better means of accounting, but rather to recognize the reasons for the emergence of lean accounting and to provide guidance relevant towards the creation of system assessment and control metrics for lean practitioners.