Case Study: Peyton Approved

Management should note that the level of activity was above what had been planned for the month. This led to an expected increase in profits of $1,100. However, the individual items on the report should not receive much management attention. The favorable variance for revenue and the unfavorable variances for expenses are entirely caused by the increase in activity.

This was favorable, but the Efficiency Variable was 100,000 unfavorable. This suggest that Competition Bike received a great price, but with the unfavorable Efficiency there were a lot of left over materials suggesting the material might not be the best quality. Direct Labor had a 150,000 Unfavorable Variance, but had a 50,000 favorable Efficiency Variance. The labor cost was up due to the high skill level needed for the bike manufacturing. The 50,000 favorable Efficiency Variance enabled the high skill labor to perform the task very efficiently. The Manufacturing Overhead had a 24,000 unfavorable Price Variance, and a 2426 unfavorable Efficiency Variance. The Advertising Cost had a 5,000 unfavorable Price Variance and a 1246 favorable Efficiency Variance. This suggest that Competition Bike spent more on Advertising in order to boost lagging sales, and the favorable Efficiency Variance shows that even though more was spent than budgeted, the money spent was efficient and worth the increase. The Transportation Out had a 3207 unfavorable Price Variance and a 2400 unfavorable Efficiency Variance. This suggest that Transportation cost were up due to increased fuel cost, and this increase in cost resulted in unfavorable Efficiency Variance due to transporting fewer bikes with increase in fuel cost.

* Efficiency Variance = 224.000-240.000 = $16.000 Unfavourable. The accountant does not mention anything that can tell for sure the reasons for this lack of efficiency, so we can only guess some reasons such as a change in the labour force to an unskilled one.

It was a freezing night, with snow glazing over the three-hundred and sixty foot field. The previously undefeated Patriots stood like goliath, immune to death glares and “boos” echoing around the Denver stadium. The swirl of the snow made it difficult to see exactly where the ball was, but near the end of the night, it was clear that the Broncos would soon defeat their giant, all the while being lead by an intrepid, young quarterback. This astonishing win wasn’t just a victory for the Broncos, but for Brock Osweiler as well.

Victoria Heavy Equipment’s most recent organization has been lacking effective communication practices amongst all of its divisions. The company has been suffering from lack of clear goals in measurable terms, for its divisions. The idea of each division functioning as an independent unit, whether it being cost or profit center, is a remarkable beginning. However, clear goals and key measurable need to be set for each center, which in our case have been overlooked. As a result, many of these centers have over spent, resulting in over expenditures, something we can definitely not afford with anticipated slower market.

Alex comes up with the consensus that the “Goal” of his business and many others is to increase net profit while simultaneously increasing return on investment and their cash flow at the plant. This basically means to make money. These three measurements can be achieved by looking closer into his second set of measurements. Alex specifically must find a way to increase throughput while at the same time decreasing it inventory and operational expenses. All three of these measurements must be cautiously monitored since they all rely on each other to be obtained in balance. Factors that cause throughput, inventory, and operational expenses to become unbalanced are excess manpower and balance capacity of the demand of resources in the market.

The following analysis is written for Dakota Office Products to evaluate current business operations and recommend future actions necessary to ensure company success. In our analysis of the company we will identify inefficient business practices that have led to the companies first profit loss in its history. We will evaluate the company’s current pricing structure, ordering methods, shipping and delivery process, and deficiencies in cash flows.

Develop and diagram an activity based cost model using the information in the case. Provide your best estimates about the cost and profitability of Wilkerson’s three product lines. What difference does your cost assignment have on reported product costs and profitability? What causes any shifts in cost and profitability?

1. Use the Overhead Cost Activity Analysis in Exhibit 5 and other data on manufacturing

The information used to calculate the total direct material and total direct labor variances are retrieved from the cost/ price variance and efficiency variance data. The material variance is zero, meaning there have been no changes for the cost of materials. The labor variance was favorable due to a fall in the labor rate. The efficiency variance for direct labor tells management how efficient the direct labor was in making the actual output that was produced by the direct labor. With that being said, in this case it is considered unfavorable. This is because, both the labor rate and efficiency of the labor has been reduced. The areas that should be reviewed at Peyton Approved include product design, reduction of scrap,

This makes the company look good and they can afford to do this from good financial skills. Decisions like this make a good profit in the long run and all in all this is why it is so important to have a good management team.

Activity-based management, activity-based costing and continuous improvement, all these help in the improvement of the efficiency in manufacturing, better control of overhead costs and the accurate costing of products. With this in mind, We disagree with the advice that Chuck Davis, the firm’s controller, gave Leonard Bryner. The traditional way of costing produce average costs that severely overstated or understated. Without the accurate costs, the firm would not be able to price properly their products and that would be damaging to the firm. With activity-based costing and management, all costs are accounted for with the help activity-drivers and overhead costs are decreased. In turn, the costs that the firm has for their products are more accurate and pricing is much easier.

From the aspect of cost center[1], tracking information of cost expenses would facilitate management to figure out the productivity by an unbiased measurement. In operations, company units such as the human resources department or marketing department, except sales department, are not engaging in market share or generating revenues. In contrast, these departments contribute their capabilities for internal supports and help sales department turn profits to the company. Those efforts are a part of product costs and also are a norm for performance evaluation.

The goal of traditional accounting practices is to achieve the lowest possible cost per unit by maximizing employee and equipment productivity. However, the goal of the plant’s

A variable department manager has many factors to consider when interpreting and analyzing a variance report. Variances can be attributed to factors such as increased or decreased volume, wage increases, cost increases for equipment and cost increases for supplies. Variance reports are a tool that can be utilized to analyze how well a company is doing with meeting current budgetary goals as well as a means for forecasting information for future budgets. In preparing a variance analysis report to be presented to the vice president, the information needs to be simple enough to understand easily, but detailed enough for the information to be useful to