Tony asked what I know about real life implementation of activity based costing/management. Well, I've done it in real life many times as I designed and implemented my product cost spreadsheet systems in around 90 SMEs. Take a look, too, at my book Cost & Management Accounting ISBN 0-13-205923-1, chapter 7. In there you can read a few examples, albeit old now, of where ABC was tried ... not only successes but failures too. There is also a discussion on the implementation of ABC in the UK, the USA and France: big differences. I give references to many of the original papers in this discussion. However, a trawl of the web has revealed the following useful links: Another one of Chris Lamb's brilliant resource lists at UNL: Chris offers fantastic services in this respect! ABC systems at Anglian Water Several links relating to LYJ Liu at Newcastle Business School. Can't verify them as they need a subscription to read them but if your library has a subscription to them they could prove useful. Another one needing a subscription but here is the abstract: Activity-based cost management in financial services industry Here are some very useful looking PDF files that I've skimmed and that I think are all from the USA but none the worse for that. http://www.mixmbb.org/en/mbb_issues/09/Articles/Activity-Based%20Costing%20and%20Savings.PDF http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1066/MR1066AppD.pdf http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~roztockn/portland03.pdf http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~roztockn/washington00.pdf http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/usps/pdf/Holsen.pdf http://www.mikon.com/RTCM3.pdf I hope these are useful. DW