| Summary: | Includes bibliographical references. === The packaging industry in South Africa is a large and diversified one. To classify all the applications would be well nigh impossible. Flexible packaging forms a very important part of the packaging industry and is itself divided into three basic groups, namely, the suppliers of basic materials, the converters and the product manufacturers who produce their own flexible packages. This thesis is concerned with the most prominent of these groups, namely the converters, that is, with those firms who convert basic materials into various forms of flexible packages, for product manufacturers. Flexible packages are now considered an integral part of the finished product and with the extensive application of flexible packaging for a very wide range of consumer products, they form part of the cost structure of these consumer products. The cost of flexible packaging is dependent upon a number of factors, such as the cost of the many different types of raw materials supplied to the converters and the cost of the highly specialised labour used. However the ability of converters to control costs, that is, to keep production costs within acceptable, limits is the most important factor. The effective control of costs is to a large degree dependent upon the successful application of management accounting techniques. This thesis attempts, as its prime object, to evaluate the use of such techniques in helping to achieve an effective control of costs in the converting firms.
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