Comprehensive cost management strategies.

• Create working capital to grow business
• Keep non-value added activity from depleting resources
• Determine if a product line truly is profitable to the bottom line
• Total Cost Measurement to Support All Cost Reduction Activities
• Overhead Cost Reduction
• Eliminate non-value-added efforts
• Increase the effectiveness of all workers
• Optimum allocation of  burden and overhead
• Use corporate standards where feasible
• Optimize purchasing, receiving, quality control, accounts payable
• Use efficient CR tools: corporate philosophy, software, schemes (6-sigma)and maintain an ongoing CR Process
• Utilize efficient Information Management system and a cost accounting system
• Identifying systemic waste in support functions
• Minimize: travel, training, energy, communications
• Cost-manage IP through protection, licensing, selling, etc.
• Increase response times
• Manage by fact (measures)
• Minimize overhead pool; direct material or direct labor
• Manage incremental growth, product decommissioning
• Minimize risks
• Minimize and make efficient: support software, IT support and network infrastructure support
• Optimize and support hardware and software deployment staff and system maintenance.
• Manage Inflation potentials
• Reducing information management and transaction processing efforts
• Eliminate waste from administrative functions
• BTO - Business Technology Optimization {3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16}
• Identify and eliminate waste in all parts of the company's operation {1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16}
• Quality Cost Reduction {1, 3, 4, 7, 12, 13}
• Eliminate obsolete products (waste, hazardous materials) {3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13}
• Reduced cycle times {1, 4, 10, 14, 15, 16}
• Minimize causes of product failure or outage (planned and unplanned) {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15}
• Delete diminished performance incidents (i.e. if users are kept waiting), costs of security breaches (in loss of reputation and recovery costs), costs of disaster preparedness and recovery {1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16}

It's very clear that a producer's unit cost of a product can continue to accumulate long after the product is sold.