Project 2 Form groups of four to six students. Identify a local company that has developed an activity- based costing system, and interview the accounting staff. Before the interview, learn The name of your company contact What the company produces Who are the company's major customers As part of your advance preparation, decide who will ask which questions during the interview. Required The purpose of your interview is to learn how the company developed its ABC system. Be sure to cover the following questions. By listening carefully in the interview, you will likely think of other questions to add to this list. 1. How did the company perform each of the seven steps in developing an ABC system (see pages 1021-1022)? Who was involved in each step? Which step was most difficult? Why? 2. How many separate activities, indirect activity cost pools, and allocation bases does the company's ABC system use? Are there plans to increase or decrease the number of activ- ities, cost pools, and allocation bases in the future? 3. Are the ABC product costs used in the general ledger, or is ABC a separate stand-alone system used primarily for management decisions? If the latter, are there plans to inte- grate ABC into the general ledger? 4. What spurred the company to develop an ABC system? 5. What benefits has ABC provided? Has management used the ABC data in activity-based management? If so, in what kinds of decisions has the company used ABC information? Has the ABC system lived up to expectations? 6. What problems arose in developing the ABC system? How did the company solve these problems? 7. Have the benefits of the ABC system outweighed its costs? As directed by your instructor, report the results of your interview in A 3- to 5-page typed paper, or A 5 to 8-minute oral class presentation Start with the background information (name of the company, contact person, company's major products and customers). Then discuss the company's ABC system, using the seven questions as a guide. If you don't have space in the paper (or time in the oral report) to cover everything, focus on the insights you found most interesting. (Hint: Make sure everyone in your group has a chance to critique the report. Use their suggestions to improve the report before you turn in the written report or make the oral presentation.)