Cost Components

The cost of all materials that are an integral part of a finished product and that have a physical presence that is readily traced to that finished product.

Examples for a computer maker include the plastic housing of a computer, the face of the monitor screen, the circuit boards within the machine, and so forth. Minor materials such as solder, tiny strands of wire, and the like, while important to the production process, are not cost effective to trace to individual finished units. These costs are termed “indirect materials.” Indirect materials are included with other components of manufacturing overhead, as discussed below.

Consists of gross wages paid to those who physically and directly work on the goods being produced.

For example, wages paid to a welder in a bicycle factory who is actually fabricating the frames of bicycles would be included in direct labor. On the other hand, the wages paid to a welder who is building an assembly line that will be used to produce a new line of bicycles is not direct labor. In general, indirect labor pertains to wages of other factory employees (e.g., maintenance personnel, supervisors, guards, etc.) who do not work directly on a product. Indirect labor is considered to be manufacturing overhead.

All costs of manufacturing other than direct materials and direct labor.

Examples include indirect materials, indirect labor, and factory related depreciation, repair, insurance, maintenance, utilities, property taxes, and so forth. Factory overhead is also known as indirect manufacturing cost, burden, or other synonymous terms. Factory overhead is difficult to trace to specific finished units, but its cost is important and must be allocated to those units. Normally, this allocation is applied to ongoing production based on estimated allocation rates, with subsequent adjustment processes for over- or under-applied overhead. This is quite important to product costing, and will be covered in depth later.