A Public Sector undertaking has completed a Project for establishment of Ground Station and Commission facility at Antarctica. The Project is of unique nature calling for development and innovative efforts at various stages of execution. The Project involved design, fabrication, erection, installation, testing and commissioning. These stages cover Data Communication Station (DCS), Data Reception Station (DRS) wherein antennae of reflector type more than 7.5m are installed and commissioned. For installation of the same, a specially designed compatible platform is fabricated made up of special grade steel material. In addition to above, a shield in the form of a Radome constructed of special material was put in place. The Radome is supposed to allow communication frequencies to pass through the same with minimum losses and a cleansing device is also designed for this Radome so as to keep surface of the Radome smooth from accumulating fog/snow as the entire structure was commissioned in Antarctica. Entire infrastructure viz., DRS, DCS, platform and Radome were subjected to various trials and tests to obtain the desired results as per the specifications of the customer . In addition to the above, tests were also conducted towards confirmation of the communication frequencies from Antarctica to NRSC, Shadnagar and NCAOR, Goa which involved several trial runs leading to heavy expenditure and related costs thereof. Depending on geographical condition at Antarctica certain equipments had to be specially designed both for transmission of communication frequencies, power and longevity.
As per Customer specs or QC, there are many iterations at the planning stage calling for trial runs of the proposed fabrication of the components, leading to final acceptance by the resident’s customer quality teams. Entire process as said above involves series of innovations at every stage leading to achievement of desired objectives of the customer.
Cost & Management Accountant has a consequential role in assessment of costs associated with above process of Innovations in a significant way. It is possible that he may help in taking pricing decisions which are cost based. At the control front, in tune with the above pricing decisions and in obtaining the Customer orders thereof, he helps in setting standards with related tolerance limits towards generation of Variance Analysis statements for the corrective actions. Knowledge of Technology by the Cost & Management Accountant becomes an inevitable factor. He has to generate cost models on strategic lines in tune with the stream of innovations attempted by technical personnel at the operational level. This may cover both hardware and software.