A Research For The Measurement Of Idle Capacity In Logistics Enterprises Based On TD-ABC

Idle capacity exists more or less in any enterprises, and logistics enterprises are no exception. How much idle capacity there is not only affects the costs of logistics enterprises, but also directly reflects the efficiency of enterprises’operation and management, and affects the growth and development of logistics enterprises. Then, how much idle capacity on earth is there in a logistics enterprise? Where does the idle capacity exist in? How to effectively measure and manage it? There are few specialized studies about logistics enterprises’idle capacity. The method Time-driven Activity Based Costing (TD-ABC for short), using time as the cost driver, can not only measure and manage logistics enterprises’cost effectively, but also calculate the effective activity time and actual activity time in its application process, which make it possible for the management of idle capacity in the service enterprises that use time as the major cost driver. However, in the current domestic, there are few enterprises using this method, and few scholars exclusively doing studies for the application of this method to logistics enterprises’management and measurement of idle capacity as well.Based on the principle of this method and the idea of time equation’s construction in this method, this paper has built a measurement model for the idle capacity’s management in logistics enterprises. And based on the measurement, this paper proposed the point that the idle capacity should be allocated to individual activity centers (departments) and activities and reflected separately, and should be dealt according to its generation causes. Then, this paper applied the measurement model to a specific case-X logistics enterprise, and effectively measured the idle capacity existed in each department and each activity, and gave some suggestions for its disposal. This research not only provided a basis for the effective measurement of logistics enterprises’idle capacity, but also laid the foundation of the further research in the future. Besides, this paper has made a sidewise proof for the superiority of Time-driven Activity Based Costing.