A Study of Activity-Based Costing of Graduate Production Costs by Curriculum at the Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University

Abstract

This study aims to examine the activities involved in the faculty's operations and to analyze program-level costs for the four ABET-accredited programs—Civil, Electrical, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering. It calculates the cost per program and develops a costing methodology that can serve as a model for other programs within the faculty. The study applies the Activity-Based Costing framework for in-depth cost analysis, using a data record form as the research instrument and Microsoft Excel for data processing. The research is based on the analysis of secondary data drawn from annual reports, the budgeting system, the finance and procurement system, financial statements, expenditure control registers, and other related documents. Costs are first classified into (1) direct costs that can be assigned to a specific program, and (2) indirect costs that cannot be directly attributed to any single program. The study then identifies the relevant activities, determines cost drivers, assigns costs to activities, identifies activity drivers, and finally allocates activity costs to each program—yielding the total cost per program. The study found a total cost of 110,041,607.88 baht, consisting of direct costs of 83,284,196.74 baht (76%) and indirect costs of 26,757,411.14 baht (24%). Across the 4 ABET-accredited undergraduate curricula, totaling 1,067 students, the average cost was 103,131.78 baht per student per year. The Electrical Engineering program had the highest per-capita cost (148,624.60 baht per student per year), while the Environmental Engineering program had the lowest (83,667.24 baht per student per year). Allocating indirect costs across 6 activity groups helped reflect the cost burden of each curriculum more accurately and realistically.