Materials for Teaching Lean Accounting

Abstract

Lean production and lean management practices are becoming more widespread, and conventional accounting methods may be incompatible with lean management. Lean accounting methods and performance measures have been developed that support lean management, but these methods receive very little coverage in cost and managerial accounting courses. One reason for the lack of lean accounting coverage is a lack of availability of classroom materials for teaching lean accounting. The Lean Accounting Content Depository hosted by the American Accounting Association has been created to address the lack of lean accounting teaching materials. The material available from the Lean Accounting Content Repository is described. Suggestions for incrementally increasing coverage of lean accounting in cost and managerial courses are presented, and a semester long course devoted entirely to lean accounting is outlined. Selected lean accounting materials suitable for classroom use available from other sources are described.