Professor Ziarati ...  I was trained in ABC in 1988-92 by Harvard Business School Professor Robert S. Kaplan when I was with KPMG consulting. I subsequently authored ABC books and articles. The attached one is an IMA Statement of Management Accounting (SMA) which is an excerpt chapter from one of my books.

Regarding the predictive view of costs -- cost estimating -- this link is a article I authored that may be useful for your student:

http://bigfatfinanceblog.com/2010/02/01/the-shift-to-predictive-accounting/

Gary ... Gary Cokins

Professor Ziarati ... After my first answer I then remembered an additional ABC book chapter of mine that may be relevant. It is titled "Project Accounting or ABC -- a Choice or Blend." It is attached.

Gary ... Gary Cokins

REZA:

GARY has provided you with his work -- and this may be all  you require.  However, you might also consider simply contacting the earlier authors -- by phone or e-mail and ask if they have any suggestions [Gary has given you what he had, so the other authors remain to "chase."}  This technically-termed  "informal literature search" approach is often surprisingly effective.  Personally, however,  I have found it usually more effective to first do a "formal literature search" that is aimed at articles that have cited the  either the earlier articles at hand, or those provided by Gary.    Looking at these in turn, you may then identify cites of their work and further continue until you have citations and even pre-prints of work in press.   This "follow-the-citations-forward" process is well-known to research librarians (aka, "Information Scientists")....                                                                                                              One way to start the process is to Google the word Scholar  and in the resulting scholar related articles find and open "Google Scholar."   When this is opened, then type in the authors names for any article you have at hand in the format: Cokins G, Nextauthor H (or whatever).   I did this entering Cokins G and added terms "and up front costs of building ships"   My second result [orders may be slightly different with each person] was that below which is Cited by 114 which you then click-on, and sort through for articles of interest to further click-on...  

ALVAH

[BOOK] Performance management: finding the missing pieces (to close the intelligence gap)

G Cokins - 2004 - books.google.com

... 85 Activity-Based Management Model Design and Principles: Key to Success 98 Operational

(Local) Activity-Based Management for Continuous ... Gary Cokins [email protected] (I welcome

your e-mail.) ... modeling the data into information, and Web-reporting it to users. ...

Cited by 114 Related articles All 3 versions Cite Save More

Dear Gary and Alvah

Thank you both for your support.  I will follow what Gary has provided and if need more support will contact him. 

Best wishes

Reza