Over the past twenty years, changes in the business environment have profoundly affected cost accounting and cost management. A few examples of these changes are an increased emphasis on providing value to customers, total quality management and manufacturing techawarness of ethical and environmental business practice. These changes are driven by the need to create and sustain a competitive advantage. For many firms, the information required to realize a competitve adcantage can no longer be drived from a traditional cost management system. The traditional system relies on functional-based costing and functions. Unfortunately, this functional-based approach often fails to provide informations tha is detailed, accurate, and timely enough to support the requirements of this new environment. This has resulted in the emergence of an activity-based cost-management system.