Assistant Manager-Costing

Role Overview

In this critical role, you will manage end-to-end cost accounting for product lines, identify cost improvement opportunities, support bid pricing, and drive analytical insights to enhance financial and operational performance. You will work closely with cross-functional teams including production, engineering, and sales.

Key Responsibilities:

Product Costing & Profitability Analysis

• Lead detailed product and project-level costing, including direct and indirect cost elements.
• Perform margin analysis across products and contracts, identifying cost levers for improvement.
• Reconcile budgeted vs actual costs and drive root-cause variance analysis.

Operational Efficiency & Constraint Analysis

• Collaborate with operations teams to assess production bottlenecks and resource constraints impacting cost or output.
• Recommend process or sourcing changes to reduce idle time and improve throughput.

Pricing Support for Bids & Proposals

• Support sales during bid evaluations, ensuring pricing is aligned with cost structure and target margins.
• Run sensitivity analysis for large deals and product customizations.

Cost Reporting, Budgeting & Forecasting

• Lead preparation of cost and margin dashboards and support budget planning.
• Contribute to performance forecasting using cost and efficiency metrics.

Inventory Valuation & Compliance

• Ensure accurate inventory and WIP valuation in line with internal policies and cost standards.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the role:

• Accuracy of product costing and margin projections
• Reduction in cost variances and operational inefficiencies
• Win-rate improvement in price-sensitive bids
• Improvement in cost-to-output ratios
• Timely delivery of reports to internal stakeholders

Candidate Profile:

Must-Have Skills

• 6–9 years of experience in cost accounting in manufacturing or engineering-heavy industries. Exposure to project-based or contract manufacturing costing preferable
• Strong command of standard costing, inventory accounting and variance analysis
• Familiarity with ERP systems
• Understanding of Theory of Constraints (TOC) or throughput thinking
• Hands-on experience supporting pricing or bid processes
• Strong analytical and cross-functional communication skills

Qualifications:

• CMA or equivalent (CA Inter with costing specialization also acceptable)
• Additional coursework or certification in operations finance (preferred)

Work Location: