IntroductionCost management revolves around reducing, estimating, containing and avoiding costs using various different methods (Drury, 2008) (Groth and Kinney, 1994). Cost reduction is done by trying to reduce both the fixed and variable costs associated with an activity. Cost containment is achieved by constraining or avoiding future cost increases, and cost avoidance revolves around eliminating unnecessary activities (Groth and Kinney, 1994). Cost management begins with identifying how costs arise and the events associated with them; only once the activities have been identified is it possible to begin managing them successfully. Cost management is often ignored by managers who instead favor increasing sales. In most cases excessive costs can be an underlying problem and cost control can be very effective in creating greater profits, “a dollar of cost savings goes directly to the bottom line, while an increase of dollars in sales can actually produce a loss to the conclusion” (Reider, 2011). Methods that can be used to manage costs are life cycle costing, target costing, Kaizen costing, activity based management and business process reengineering. Lifecycle costing, target costing, and Kaizen costing are all cost management methods and will be the focus of this essay. How they are used to control the costs and benefits of each will be discussed, along with when it is appropriate to use each type of costing system. Life cycle costing: Life cycle costing is an analysis process that estimates the cost of an investment over the economic life of products. It determines whether profits during production will cover all costs involved, including installation costs up to disposal costs (Norman, 2007). I... half of the paper... m. (2014). What is the target cost? definition and meaning. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/target-costing.html [Accessed: 7 April 2014]. In the text: (Drury, 2008) Bibliography: Drury, C. (2008). Cost management and accounting. 7th ed. London: Cengage. In text: (Groth & Kinney, 1994) Bibliography: Groth, JC & Kinney, M.R. (1994). Cost management and value creation. Management Decision, 32 (4), pp. 52--57. In the text: (Kren, 2008) Bibliography: Kren, L. (2008). Using activity-based management to control costs. Journal Of Performance Management, 21 (2), pp. 18--27. In text: (Norman, 2007) Bibliography: Norman, G. (2007). Life cycle cost. Property Management, 8 (4), pp. 344--356. In text: (Reider, 2011) Bibliography: Reider, R. (2011). Cost management in difficult times. Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance, 22(3), pp. 9--15.