Sippican Case Study Scm

The current cost system allocates overhead costs once a year, as a function of direct labor dollars. This allocation strategy results in:

In using the ABC system, Valves and Pumps are matching the company’s target of 35% of gross margin apart from Flow Controllers. With the use of TAC, the gross margin on pump sales is 19.5% that well below the company's target gross margin of 35%. This indicates that the current overhead cost allocation practice did not reflect the real costs incurred on the products. The lower actual gross profit obtained was mainly due to wrong cost allocation on the pump product.

Overhead costs need to be accounted for this way we can understand just how much cost goes into producing each unit. There are other cost factors that contribute to the product aside from labor and material. Since the projected and the actual sales volumes do not align Kelly should be concerned with the other

Due to the recent economy situation and ever challenging business environment, for the whole of last year, the company recorded cost hike and sales decline. This has impacted the bottom line (profitability) of the company. The top management sees that urgent action plans need to be put in place for continuous survival of the company.

Overhead costs are not in proportion to the production output because of the method they are using. This leads to inaccurate pricing and costing decisions. An Activity Based Costing System would help find the real relationship between the products produced and overhead.

“Auerbach Enterprises uses machine hours as the cost driver to assign overhead costs to the air conditioners. The company has used a company-wide predetermined overhead rate in past years, but the new controller, Bennie Leon, is considering the use of departmental overhead rates beginning with the next year. “(Schneider, 2012). One product is affected more than the other by use of departmental rates rather than companywide rate.

Under a traditional system, overhead cost is allocated to an activity based on hours or rates for direct labor or machine usage. However, this approach does not clearly indicate how much overhead cost will be needed in order to complete a job through a particular function. ABC methodology is to be used as an alternative to traditional accounting where a business 's overhead costs (indirect costs such as electrical energy consumption for heating or cooling, or indirect cost associated with marketing) are allocated as a proportion of direct costs, to an activity. This approach is unsatisfactory because there can be cases where two activities could absorb the same direct costs

Suggest key actions that management should take in order to confront these circumstances. Provide a rationale for your response. (Hint: Your firm’s price must cover average variable costs in the short run and average total costs in the long run to continue operations.)

3.) The estimated product costs for valves, pumps, and flow controllers using ABC for overhead activities (primarily Ex. 1 & 4) and direct cost data from the Exhibits are:

Referring to Vice President of Finance, he want to pursue the current approach because they are in profitable based on contribution margin by 35 percent. The company just needs to monitor their margin in control their cost well.

In reality machine depreciation should be allocated to overhead using how many machine hour it took to produce each product. With 4,000 flow controllers being produced at a machine usage of .20 hours they accounts for 800 total machine hours. This number is very small in comparison to valves and pumps which take 3,750 and 6,250 total machine hours to produce, respectively. This means that flow controllers should be allocated less machine deprecation overhead due to the relative small number of total machine hours used. However, since the overhead rate is only calculated using labor in the traditional system Flow controllers are being over allocated. The table below shows how much machine depreciation is being allocated to overhead using the traditional method based on labor hours.

Under the existing cost system for the turning machine area, there are two direct costs and three cost pools for overhead costs. The two direct costs are simply Direct Labor and Direct Material, which are traced to the cost object, which is Machine Parts. The total overhead is split into three cost pools, which are the following: overhead applied on direct labor, overhead applied on material dollars, and overhead applied on ACTS machine hours. Furthermore, each cost pool is broken down into direct and period sub categories. The mentioned cost pools for the following cost drivers: Direct Labor dollars, Material dollars, and machine hours.

1. What is the cost to implement each of the strategic options facing Clariant Corporation and what kinds of revenue growth are necessary to break even and to maintain or improve overall profitability?

Therefore, there is no doubt that it is significant to allocate overhead cost accurately for every production. If the overhead is calculated incorrectly, the selling price of the product will change. The company will not cover the cost and make a loss.

The above graph suggests that volume based computation of overhead costs does not reflect the real overhead costs based on actual production per product line (computed maximum in excess over actual). On the other hand, if we follow the allocation of overhead costs based on prime costs as illustrated in Exhibit 2 of the case, we need to consider other quantitative factors: 1. No data is available to determine the amount of raw materials used in producing each of the products. While we can assume that the production of small, colored glass ornaments uses fewer raw materials (e.g. glass) than large, colored glass ornaments, the amount of glass used to produce specialty ornaments cannot be derived from the facts of the case. 2. There is also no data available to determine the number of direct labor hours consumed for producing each product type, although evidently, specialty ornaments use more direct labor hours. Based on the above considerations, we deem it inaccurate to base overhead on prime costs, a common practice in traditional costing. In addition,