Richard Schonberger

      Ultra-lean accounting bears allegiance to the economy-of-control principle: The best control requires the fewest controls—and controllers. It is guided by a common belief in the lean-accounting community: Process improvement drives cost reduction. Finally, it bows deeply to the customer and the customer’s golden goals: ever better quality, quicker response, greater flexibility, and higher value.
      Under high-energy process improvement, powered by lean/TQ, costs fall of their own accord. Cost-management practices, such as the following, become seen as cost-consuming, non-value-adding excess: monthly cost reporting, standard costs, cost variances, monetary goal-setting, and cost as a carrot-and-stick motivator. In the ultra-lean alternative, an enlightened, process-improving work force provides its own motivation by visual, public plotting of non-monetary trends, which praise achievement and scold laxity. Plans and goals, set forth low in the organization, revolve, not around cost, but around process data targeting the golden goals and specific to causes. The many components of visual management accomplish directly and simply what cost-denominated devices do indirectly.
      Ultra-lean accounting does not cast off the gamut of cost-based practices. A worthy practice is placing cost labels on bins for parts and tools, raising cost sensitivity of a work force trained as budget-watchers. Activity-based costing, a lean-accounting mainstay, is valued under ultra-lean—but only for infrequent competitive decision-making.