Managerial and cost accounting textbook discussions of the “process view” of activity‐based costing (ABC) often fail to communicate how companies use activity‐based accounting, benchmarking, continuous improvement and reengineering techniques to improve their business processes. Such knowledge is valuable to students who will enter globally competitive markets. ITT Automotive North America is a business case that gives the reader the benchmark figures, cost and other process‐performance data, and activity descriptions necessary to complete a project to improve a company's process to acquire and pay for small‐dollar goods and services. Because of the cross‐functional nature of the issues involved in process improvement, the case would also fit well in either an auditing or information systems course.
