ma-standard-cost-variance

What problem does it solve?

Helps you explain why monthly manufacturing costs differ from standard by splitting total variance into price and quantity components and linking them to responsible departments.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Variance Decomposition (Price vs. Quantity): Calculates price variance and quantity variance per item and verifies total variance consistency.
• Category-Level Aggregation: Summarizes variances across material, labor, and overhead to reveal where the impact concentrates.
• Root Cause Hypotheses & Recommendations: Proposes plausible drivers (e.g., market price shifts, waste/rework, process efficiency) and suggests corrective actions mapped to responsibility.
• CSV-Based Automated Analysis: Accepts a structured CSV (item_name, cost_category, standard/actual price and quantity) to generate a structured variance report using the provided templates.

Quick Start

Upload your CSV with standard vs. actual costs and ask the skill to produce a monthly standard cost variance report with top variances, responsibility mapping, and root-cause hypotheses.