Cost And Optimization In Government

The careful management of costs and operations are two of the most essential elements of operating any successful organization, public or private. While the private sector is driven by profit-maximizing incentives to keep costs to a minimum, the public sector’s mission and goals are guided by a different set of objectives: to provide a wide range of essential goods and services to maintain social order, improve public health, revitalize the economy, and, most importantly, to improve the quality of life for its citizens. Although the objectives are different, it is just as important for public decision makers to make the best use of available resources by keeping the cost of operation to a minimum. This book demonstrates that with a careful emphasis on cost accounting, operations management, and quality control, all organizations and governments can increase efficiency, improve performance, and prepare to weather hard times. This book is divided into three parts: Part I offers thorough coverage of cost fundamentals, with an emphasis on basic cost concepts, cost behavior, cost analysis, cost accounting, and cost control. Part II examines optimization in costs and operations in government including traditional or classical optimization with applications in inventory management and queuing, followed by mathematical programming and network analysis. Finally, Part III explores special topics in cost and optimization, in particular those related to games and decisions, productivity measurement, and quality control. Simple, accessible language and explanations are integrated throughout, and examples have been drawn from government so that readers can easily relate to them. Cost and Optimization in Government is required reading for practicing public managers and students of public administration in need of a clear, concise guide to maximizing public resource efficiency.

Everything you need to streamline agency costs and expenditures. You've heard about the enormous savings potential of Activity-Based Cost Management (ABC/M) -- now it's time to put this powerful system to work in your organization. This 400+ page book guides you through every phase of activity-based accounting, from setting up a basic system through its organizational implementation. In one concise resource, you now have everything you need to streamline all aspects of your organization's costs and expenditures. Written in easy-to-understand language and clearly illustrated, Gary Cokins's book provides the financial techniques to determine the true and actual costs of services and cost rates; implement process improvements departmentally and organization-wide; evaluate the pros and cons of outsourcing and privatization decisions versus internal delivery; and align financial and budgetary activities to the organization's mission and strategic plan. As part of the Editor's Choice Series, this book is offered as a professional reference for SAS users. This title addresses concepts related to using SAS, but it is not specific to SAS and does not include SAS examples. 2001.

Provides step-by-step guidance on implementing and using a value-based management system within the government Countless books on proposed management practices have been written and published over the past century. Some of these have focused on specific management practices for government. In more recent decades, the topics of strategic planning, performance management, cost management and risk management have been extensively covered. However, little has been offered as an approach to integrate these and numerous other management methods and practices in a manner that maximizes the delivery of value to the organization’s key stakeholders. A general management framework is presented in this book in a manner particularly applicable to government organizations. Value-Based Management in Government introduces a new, integrating framework for management practices that optimizes the balancing of results sought; resources supplied and allocated; and risks accepted. These considerations are all balanced for the purpose of delivering maximum stakeholder value. The book offers guidance on how strategic planning, performance management, cost/resource management, and risk management must all be integrated as part of a portfolio management framework across the organization. The book also discusses the role of information technology (IT) in providing data for insights and decision-making, and the importance of organizational change management to implement the needed organizational and behavioral changes. Beginning by explaining the concept of Value-Based Management for the public sector and government, the text goes on to explore topics such as the evolutionary stages of maturity of management accounting, the benefit of attributes (e.g., value-add versus nonvalue-add) in cost data, predictive planning with expense projections, risk management, and various performance measurements (e.g., key performance indicators [KPIs] ). This authoritative book: Discusses a framework for balancing and integrating cost, performance, and risk Explains IT systems integration issues related to activity-based cost management (ABC/M) Addresses why some ABC/M implementation projects fail to meet expectations Describes how quality management efforts can be measured in financial terms Explores the wider uses of predictive accounting (e.g., driver-based budgeting, what-if scenario analysis) Provides organizational change management insights and recommendations needed to achieve the required changes in management decision-making. Value-Based Management in Government is an important source of information for leaders, executives, managers, and employee teams working within or with government organizations.

Assisted by globalization and the rapid application of advanced technologies, the transformative power of urbanization is being felt around the world. The scale and the speed of existing and projected urbanization poses several challenges to researchers in multiple disciplines, such as computer science, engineering, and the social sciences. Optimizing Regional Development Through Transformative Urbanization provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of applications within urban growth interventions. It also explores the strategies for new urban development tools such as the rise of new platforms for digital activities, concepts of sharing economy, collaborative economy, crowdsourcing, and crowdfunding. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as cryptocurrencies, public-private partnership, and urban governance, this book is a vital reference for city development planners, decision makers, policymakers, academicians, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on the delivery of transformative urbanization changes.