Operations Management: Long Term Expansion Strategies

Although the financial goal is to create profit, we need to calculate the breakeven point to get started.

The budget analysis shows that the labor hours of the firm are higher than the budgeted amount. As such, the firm needs to evaluate the cost benefit analysis of making or buying their products. To make this decision, various factors need to be considered. Before making the decision, Peyton needs to evaluate the marginal costs and revenue of making versus buying the products. The firm should take the option which provides the highest marginal profit which is the

The breakeven point is used my companies to prevent loss. The Cost Volume Profit (CVP) is the tool in which to capture the breakeven point. Sometimes it is referred to as the breakeven analysis. The CVP assists the company in identifying future operation need, production costs, and expansion possibilities based on estimating costs, prices, and volumes. This profit response can help Competition Bikes determine the amount of needed sales, what products to manufacture, pricing policies, marketing strategies, and how much profit is actually needed. In this analysis we will assume

There are some limitations of break-even as well. For example, it cannot give accurate results if the data used for it is predicted. Data such as change in direct cost

15. When deciding whether to discontinue a segment of a business, managers should focus on: (Points: 2)

The next step would be for management to know precisely how their decision to downsize capacity would impact the firm’s future operating costs, and also identify specific areas in which the firm could achieve additional cost reductions. Additionally, the cost analysis would help forecast the firm’s operating costs and projected profits (or losses) for the upcoming fiscal year. However, before we can proceed with such analysis, an examination of how the various categories of Continental’s costs behave is in order.

This question gives students an opportunity to exercise their ability to interpret break-even analyses. Key teaching points should include explaining the preparation of a break-even chart, the interpretation of the break-even volume (938,799 hectoliters [HL]), and the comparison of the break-even volume to the current volume (1,173,000 HL). Another key point is that the chart in case Exhibit 5 is relevant only for the current cost structure of the company—if variable costs increase or the plant expansion is approved, the break-even volume will rise. Finally, students should be aided in understanding that “break-even” refers to operating profit, not free cash flow. The typical use of the break-even chart ignores taxes, investments, and the depreciation tax shield.

Break-even point analysis is a measurement system that calculates the margin of safety by comparing the amount of revenues or units that must be sold to cover fixed and variable costs associated with making the sales. In other words, it’s a way to calculate when a project will be profitable by equating its total revenues with its total expenses. There are several different uses for the equation, but all of them deal with managerial accounting and cost management (Break-Even Point, n.d.)

3.1 For each hotel, what is the role of technology and the role of operations

Break even analysis can be used to decide whether to alter the existing product emphasis or not. For example in this case, if we refer last year’s data, we can see that the product C is not economically feasible to manufacture at $2.40 / unit. Following table gives the analysis for checking whether the company can afford to invest in additional “C” capacity.

A company's break-even point is the amount of sales or revenues that it must generate in order to equal its expenses. In other words, it is the point at which the company neither makes a profit nor suffers a loss. Calculating the break-even point (through break-even analysis) can provide a simple, yet powerful quantitative tool for managers. In its simplest form, break-even analysis provides insight into whether or not revenue from a product or service has the ability to cover the relevant costs of production of that product or service. Managers can use this information in making a wide range of business decisions, including setting prices, preparing competitive bids, and applying for loans.

To ensure that SWA is managing capacity, revenue, and customer satisfaction, the long-term focus should be on forecast accuracy and to incorporate capacity planning that provides capacity cushions that are a strategic fit for the overall process and supply chain. SWA must determine what effective capacity can be economically sustained under normal conditions; focus on sizing capacity cushions to ensure that reserve capacity is sufficient to the utilization of production capacity; utilize timing and sizing expansion to know when expansion is appropriate and whether to be attempted in large or small capacity jumps. Finally, capacity strategy should link capacity and other decisions together so that the overall process strategies and operations of SWA are balanced and work cohesively by looking at how capacity cushions being utilized strategically fit with:

While cost is seldom the only criterion used in a make-or-buy decision, simple break-even analysis can be an effective way to quickly surmise the

Based on the real world functioning of businesses, every organization that deals with the process of manufacturing of certain products operates in accordance with the main principle of maximizing its profits. During the performance of daily activities, many business managers face a series of questions related to planning, control and decision making. In order to give answers to all these questions, an additional analysis needs to be considered. It is very important for managers to plan carefully how they are going to generate sufficient money to pay down costs and, in this way to result with a profit. As managers are interested in having the adequate information about the influence that certain actions might have on the profitability of the business, "Cost Volume and Profit" analysis plays a significant role by being a potential tool in facilitating the process of making the right decisions regarding planning and control in order to add value to the company. (Trifan and Anton, 2011). To further illustrate the essential impact that CVP analysis has on management authorities in making better decisions, I will refer to and analyze the case of the Hampshire Company which follows as below.

This method did not account for any specific cost arising from the complexity, diversity or other production related specifics of the product line. In contrary, the time-driven ABC approach does account for all the nuances of each product line. From the table can also be inferred that the practical capacity is not totally used since at the end there is a total of $28,288 of unused resources. Table 3 summarizes the capacity utilization of various resources.