When organizing a production, institution, company, or any entrepreneur, the manager usually uses the rule: invest a minimum in the business, get the maximum from everything. But no one can do without costs, or more precisely, without production costs, the types of which we will consider in this article.
At different times, economists from different countries classified such expenses according to their models. The most popular of them in the twentieth century was the concept of Karl Marx. He divided the costs of production, their types, to be more precise, into circulation and production. The latter included the cost of the purchase of raw materials, energy costs, as well as salary payments. The first ones incurred all the costs associated with the sale of products.
Modern reality has made adjustments. And at the heart of economic analysis today, production costs, their types, structure differ in both large numbers and in form with content. Thus, expenses are generally combined into one large group. It is called gross cost. They include two subgroups: constants and variables.
We explain the nature and types of production costs, starting with
fixed costs. So, any enterprise bears the costs of maintaining, renting, repairing premises, structures, buildings. This is not the only constant factor. The interest of loans, the maintenance of the security staff or the payment of an agreement for such a service, the purchase and maintenance of equipment - all this must also be included in the amount of costs.
The main types of production costs also contain such a variety as variable costs. The latter depend on the volume of output and include raw materials, materials, employee wages, costs of energy carriers and the like.
In order for the economic analysis of the enterprise to be carried out accurately and scrupulously, it is customary to derive average indicators. By a fairly simple formula, they are calculated:
- Average fixed costs. To obtain this indicator, it is necessary to find the quotient between the total fixed costs and the number of products produced.
- Average variable costs. The calculation algorithm is the same, only the variable of expenses changes.
But economic analysis does not end with the above calculations. An important characteristic in it is the value of the maximum level of profit. To calculate it, a conclusion is needed on the highest productivity of the enterprise. That is, the calculation of the maximum number of products manufactured in a certain period. There is such a thing as marginal production costs, the types of which differ from the above. These are extra costs laid down for the release of additional products.
Costs of production, their types, are calculated in Russia and in Western countries according to different methods. The thing is that the notion of cost has inherited from the USSR of the Russian Federation, which by and large includes not only the costs associated with the main output, but also excess. Western economists attribute all the additional costs to the main types of costs.