All of the middle-sized and large manufacturing businesses around the world have a marketing department. What is a marketing department? What does it do? What kinds of people work there?
Companies are in business to make money. The responsibility of determining product cost is one key element to the financial success of the company. A slight error here, an oversight there, and profitability of the company is compromised. Engineers, accountants, estimators, and statisticians are just a few of the people involved with this process.
Packaging is a key element in the financial stability/profitability of a company. The protection of the product during shipping, warehousing, and shelf-life storage in a store is extremely important. Also, the appearance of the package has a lot to do with the marketability of a product. In some cases, the cost of packaging may exceed the cost of the product itself. The designer and the sales and marketing person would be working in conjunction with the packaging company during this process.
Exercise
• Analyze Product Cost
Standards
This lesson meets standards for Science Content, Math, Language Arts, and Technology.
Key Terms
Cost Analysis, Design for Manufacture, Inventory Just in Time, Overhead, Real Time Inspection, Total Quality Management, Warehousing
Evaluation
Student portfolios will be assessed and evaluated periodically as the year progresses.
Resources
Harms, Henry R., and Swernofsky, Neal R., Technology Interactions, Glencoe McGraw- Hill, 1999 ISBN 0-02-677701-0 (Teacher's Resource Guide) and ISBN 0-02-838779-1 (Student Text).
Hutchinson, John, and Karsnitz, John R., Design and Problem Solving in Technology, Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 1994 ISBN 0-8273-5244-1.
Hutchinson, John, and Karsnitz, John R., Teacher's Guide to Accompany Design and Problem Solving in Technology, Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 1997 ISBN 0-8273-5246-8.
Knowlton, Kenneth W., Beauchemin, Robert A., and Quinn, Patrick J., Technical and Freehand Drawing and Sketching, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1977 ISBN 0-07-035207-0.
Procedure
1. Discuss portfolios. (Instructor-led discussion) 2. Review a PowerPoint. (Student) 3. Complete Exercise - Create a Portfolio. (Student)
Whenever a product is produced, many factors are taken into consideration to arrive at a cost for the product. Cost of design, cost of engineering, material costs, manufacturing costs, cost of inventory, sales projections, costs related to sales, overhead costs, and shipping costs, including packaging, are all used in product cost estimation. This cost estimation phase is extremely important because businesses want to make money. Every factor is estimated and re-estimated to project a cost of the product that is going to be competitive in the marketplace, yet profitable for the company.
To analyze product cost
1. During instruction, you will define vocabulary terms for the section and take notes.
2. You will break out into groups of three and formulate a cost analysis for a given product.