Determinantes dos custos da produção de soja no Brasil Carneiro, D.M.; Duarte, S.L.; Costa, S.A. da. Custos e @gronegócio on line-v. 15, n. Resumo Os determinantes de custos são analisados para conhecer a estrutura de custos e a posição... more

Determinantes dos custos da produção de soja no Brasil Carneiro, D.M.; Duarte, S.L.; Costa, S.A. da. Custos e @gronegócio on line-v. 15, n. Resumo Os determinantes de custos são analisados para conhecer a estrutura de custos e a posição relativa de custos da organização em relação à sua cadeia de valor e aos seus concorrentes. No que diz respeito ao agronegócio brasileiro, em especial a produção de soja, um dos principais itens exportados pelo Brasil, esse conhecimento pode ajudar o produtor rural a planejar e gerenciar seus custos de forma mais apropriada. O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar os principais fatores determinantes dos custos da soja, buscando avaliar aqueles que são mais relevantes e seus principais efeitos sobre a estrutura de custos dos produtores. O estudo discute os principais conceitos de determinantes de custos e custos no agronegócio, e fundamenta-se nas informações de custos das cinco principais regiões produtoras de soja no Brasil, divulgadas pelo IMEA e analisadas no período compreendido entre a safra 2010-2011 e a safra 2015-2016. Verifica-se a atuação de fatores determinantes de custos, como localização, escala e utilização da capacidade, tecnologia, experiência e aprendizagem, tempestividade, relações na cadeia de valor, estrutura de capitais e fatores institucionais. Os efeitos desses fatores modificam a estrutura de custos dos produtores e implicam diferenças bastante perceptivas nos custos de cada região em diferentes períodos. Palavras-chave: Determinantes de Custos. Gestão Estratégica de Custos. Soja.

When risk mitigation fails, a company is often faced with one or more crisis events. Crisis can take many forms. A type of crisis, a smoldering crisis, can continue gaining momentum over time, slowly eroding the future success of an... more

When risk mitigation fails, a company is often faced with one or more crisis events. Crisis can take many forms. A type of crisis, a smoldering crisis, can continue gaining momentum over time, slowly eroding the future success of an organization. This paper looks at how two airlines—Southwest Airlines and US Airways—responded to the smoldering crisis of loss of profitability and ridership in their short-haul markets over the period from the early 1990s to mid-2000s. Specifically addresses the use of structural and executional cost drivers.
Design/methodology/approach
Reports the results of a comparative case study. Considers the use of cost drivers in addressing a smoldering crisis while attempting not to trigger an acute crisis.
Findings
Viewed from the perspective of strategic cost management these two companies made very different responses to the smoldering crisis, with US Airways choosing a structural response, triggering a cascade of smoldering and acute crisis, while Southwest emphasized executional strategic adjustments that allowed it to maintain profitability as it transitioned to new operating conditions.
Originality/value
Enterprise risk management literature is just beginning to link smoldering and acute crisis management. Strategic cost management literature has developed a distinction between structural and executional cost drivers. This case study bridges the streams of literature and provides two examples of the use of cost drivers in addressing a smoldering crisis at two notable firms.

Hospital costs in the USA are a large part of the national GDP. Medical billing and supplies processes are significant and growing contributors to hospital operations costs in the USA. This article aims to identify cost drivers associated... more

Hospital costs in the USA are a large part of the national GDP. Medical billing and supplies processes are significant and growing contributors to hospital operations costs in the USA. This article aims to identify cost drivers associated with these processes and to suggest improvements to reduce hospital costs. A Monte Carlo simulation model that uses @Risk software facilitates cost analysis and captures variability associated with the medical billing process (administrative) and medical supplies process (variable). The model produces estimated savings for implementing new processes. Significant waste exists across the entire medical supply process that needs to be eliminated. Annual savings, by implementing the improved process, have the potential to save several billion dollars annually in US hospitals. The other analysis in this study is related to hospital billing processes. Increased spending on hospital billing processes is not entirely due to hospital inefficiency. The study lacks concrete data for accurately measuring cost savings, but there is obviously room for improvement in the two US healthcare processes. This article only looks at two specific costs associated with medical supply and medical billing processes, respectively. This study facilitates awareness of escalating US hospital expenditures. Cost categories, namely, fixed, variable and administrative, are presented to identify the greatest areas for improvement. The study will be valuable to US Congress policy makers and US healthcare industry decision makers. Medical billing process, part of a hospital's administrative costs, and hospital supplies management processes are part of variable costs. These are the two major cost drivers of US hospitals' expenditures that were examined and analyzed.

ABSTRACT The paper analyses the factors that determine the solid waste collection costs. Studying a sample of Italian municipalities, the research estimates the collection costs of different types of waste: paper and paperboard,... more

ABSTRACT The paper analyses the factors that determine the solid waste collection costs. Studying a sample of Italian municipalities, the research estimates the collection costs of different types of waste: paper and paperboard, multimaterial (glass, plastic, metal), organic, residual undifferentiated waste. The findings show that the economies of scale and the cost drivers differ across the types of waste. Among the cost drivers significantly affecting the different types of waste, we find: the population size and density, the percentage of separate collection, the percentage of home collection and the private delivery. Our study also highlights how the waste disposal firm internal efficiency significantly affects the collection costs with different degrees in each type of waste. The results may have interesting practical and policy implications for the waste costs management systems and for the overall waste management performance.

This study examined the associations between various patient-related, demographic and episode-based factors, and the length of time associated with completed episodes of outpatient (ambulatory) occupational therapy care. Data were... more

This study examined the associations between various patient-related, demographic and episode-based factors, and the length of time associated with completed episodes of outpatient (ambulatory) occupational therapy care. Data were provided over a 10-month period by ...

Purpose – This paper seeks to demonstrate an application of a methodology, which is based on the integration of three techniques, with the purpose of modelling activity-based costing (ABC) in restaurants. The proposed methodology serves... more

Purpose – This paper seeks to demonstrate an application of a methodology, which is based on the integration of three techniques, with the purpose of modelling activity-based costing (ABC) in restaurants. The proposed methodology serves as a tool for effectively computing values of cost drivers in the restaurant industry, as well as making accurate cost estimations. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology

The is a study of the underlying drivers of health care costs in Canada, mainly focusing on the periods from 1998 until 2008. This report should be used as a companion to the Canadian Institute for Health Informations's annual report on... more

The is a study of the underlying drivers of health care costs in Canada, mainly focusing on the periods from 1998 until 2008. This report should be used as a companion to the Canadian Institute for Health Informations's annual report on national health expenditure trends.

Parametric cost estimation models are widely used effort prediction tools for software development projects. These models are based on mathematical models that use as inputs specific values for relevant cost drivers. The selection of... more

Parametric cost estimation models are widely used effort prediction tools for software development projects. These models are based on mathematical models that use as inputs specific values for relevant cost drivers. The selection of these inputs is, in many cases, driven by public prescriptive rules that determine the selection of the values. Nonetheless, such selection may in some cases be restrictive and somewhat contradictory with empirical evidence, in other cases the selection procedure is somewhat subject to ambiguity. This paper presents an approach to improve the quality of the selection of adequate cost driver values in parametric models through a process of adjustment to bodies of empirical evidence. The approach has two essential elements. Firstly, it proceeds by analyzing the diverse factors potentially affecting the values a cost driver input might adopt for a given project. And secondly, an aggregation mechanism device for the selection of input variables based on existing data is explicitly devised. This paper describes the rationale for the overall approach and provides evidence of its appropriateness through a concrete empirical study that analyses the COCOMO II DOCU cost driver.