Spokespeople for Southco and other companies comment on the ways in which they are changing how they track costs to support lean manufacturing and improve decision making. For instance, Wayne Thompson, global finance manager for value stream analysis at Southco, a maker of latches, fasteners, and hinges, says there are advantages when numbers reported really reflect the underlying reality of the business. For instance, from a traditional cost accounting standpoint, making a product that would cost $3.75 on the consumer's shelf, but which would cost $4.61 to make, would be a losing situation for the manufacturer. However, when lean processes are considered, along with out-of-pocket expenses, the application is very profitable. The reason is that most of the cost above the $1 cost of materials was for labor and overhead, and the company had the capacity to make the product on existing equipment. The cost of more labor was also very low, so Southco was left to pay only the price of the raw material. A manager for an IW 500 company also explains that his company had to shut down an under-used plant after a market downturn that resulted in lower sales volumes that increased overhead and caused a price rise, which reduced sales even more. The lean account approach takes a straightforward look at what occurs between the inputs and outputs of a production process, tracking costs in less detail, expensing material immediately as it is pulled into production, and eradicating work orders, tracking of transactions, and reporting of variances totally. Many manufacturer use such monitoring and inventory tracking tactics, but adherents of lean accounting say those procedures are intrinsically wasteful.