الفهرس 
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Abstract
Every product has a life-cycle represents the stages through which any product shall go, starting from the idea of producing that product and until fading away. The life-cycle of the products doesn’t have the same length in all types of products but there are some long term and medium term products. Due to the rapid growth and the quick innovation of the industry, the life-cycle of some products have been shortened resulting what’s known as “The short life-cycle products”. The short life-cycle products are those products with a life-cycle between three months and one year, mostly are the fashion based and technology based products.
The short life-cycle products have a unique nature and special characteristics such as the lack of the historical sales data, the volatility in the prices of the parts of production, the huge uncertainty of the demand, and the speed deterioration of the inventory. The lack of the historical sales data enlarges the problem of the demand uncertainty which results extra costs to the organization and these extra costs called “The mismatching costs” which are the costs resulting from the mismatching between the supply and the demand which consequently, result from either in the first scenario a loss from the disposal or calling back these products to be remanufactured with the new features in case the supply exceeds the demand, or in the second scenario a loss from losing a potential customers in case the demand exceeds the supply.
In order to reach the desired cost rationalization, the organization should focus only on eliminating or minimizing the waste as any arbitrary cutting of the costs would result a declining in the quality of the products. The efficient and effective Rationalization of the costs requires examining the costs of these products all over the supply chain. There were some problems facing the cost rationalization process all over the supply chain, as for the research and development stage it is too difficult to keep up with the rapid growth and the high speed introduction of new developed products, a matter that affects the costs of designing new products. Regarding the supply stage, the prices of the parts are not stable which makes it difficult to determine the costs of acquiring the parts needed in the production. When it comes to the manufacturing stage, we can find that, the problem is not only the demand uncertainty which makes it difficult to determine the quantity to be manufactured and supplied in the markets to avoid the mismatching costs, but also the complex production activities that may contain non-core activities or non-add value activities which represent a cost burden over the organization. The sales stage also is facing a problem of the different response of the customers to the different marketing and sales channels. Finally, the after sales stage has a problem of a relatively high costs compared to the traditional types of products.
The speed deterioration of the inventory and the lack of historical sales data create another problem in dealing with the traditional costing systems which is no longer appropriate for the short life-cycle products due to their unique nature, as we can find out that many of the traditional costing methods that used for the traditional products cannot be effective and efficient for the short life-cycle products.
The effective and efficient cost rationality should overcome all the previous problems of the short life-cycle products all over the supply chain and all over its life-cycle. A combination of the Total quality management (TQM) techniques and the six sigma shall enable the organization to solve some of the problems of the short life-cycle products. Using the benchmarking technique can help the organization to keep up with the best usage of the resources which shall result a cost saving. Using also a modified concept of the well-known Just in time (JIT) which requires the organization to divide its production into a smaller periods of time –could be quarters- in order to make sure that the market has absorbed the already manufactured and introduced quantities and ready for more which helps to avoid the mismatching costs. Using the design to cost as a sub-technique of the “Lean production” would help the organization to design a product that meets all the quality requirements and customers’ needs within a targeted cost. Also using the should costs which is also a sub-technique of the lean production shall enable the organization to has an insight in the cost structure of its suppliers which consequently, supports the organization’s negotiation position and helps the it to acquire the desired parts with the best fair price. On the other hand, using the six sigma technique shall help the organization to reach customer requirements and also production defect prevention in order to maintain the customers’ loyalty. Using the Famous activity based costing (ABC) technique that analyzes the activities in order to detect and eliminate the non-add value activities shall provide the organization with a cost saving.
from filtering the available marketing channels, we can find out that, selling through intermediaries shall release the manufacturing organization from the burden and the need of the direct communications with the prospective customers, it also helps in minimizing the mismatching costs as, each intermediary knows his assigned territory well enough to be able to make the required consultation to the manufacturing organization about the market status and response to the product once it’s needed. Consultations from the intermediaries represent a method of forecasting the demand, as the experts’ opinion is a subjective method of forecasting and it’s very important but it’s not enough to count on it alone, using these consultations along with an accurate objective demand forecasting model that based on a statistical analysis of data shall provide more precise information to count on it.
After Comparative analysis of the costing methods that could be used in a costing system, we can find out that the “normal historical” is the most appropriate input strategy for the short life-cycle products as it depends partially on the actual cost data of the direct costs and uses some estimations only with the overhead costs. Using the activity based costing technique is the best costing method for the short life-cycle products as it charges all the costs to the activities that eventually charge them to the inventory. The process costing is the appropriate method to accumulate the costs as it charges the costs to each process a matter that helps the organization to keep up with the rapid nature of these products. The nature of the short life cycle products makes it better for the organization to use the FIFO method due to the continuous changes in the prices of the inventory parts in order to achieve more accurate costs of the inventory. The perpetual recording system maintains continuous records of the quantities of inventory and the costs flowing through the inventory accounts, a matter like that would help the organization to keep up with the rapid changes in the cost of the production of the short life-cycle products.
A case study has been done on a large and reputable corporation for electronics, and after analyzing and studying the data it was founded that the demand uncertainty has a vital role in the fluctuations of the sales revenues. Accordingly, using an accurate sales forecasting model was a must in order to solve that problem of the fluctuating sales. The forecasting model has built on the financial statements of the corporation from 2004 and till 2014 and eventually, forecasted sales revenues for the next two years were generated from the model and by comparing the sales revenues forecasted for the year of 2015 with the actual numbers published in the financial statements later on, it was founded that the numbers are really close.
An empirical analysis has been done also, based on a Five likert scale questionnaire to know the opinions of both; the academic staff members in the Egyptian universities and the cost accountants working in the short life-cycle products’ industry about the finding of the research. After analyzing the responses from 113 academic staff member and 189 cost accountant, statistically, all the research hypotheses have been accepted and validated.