Charles Lackey operates a bakery in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Because of its excellent product and excellent location, demand has increased by 25% in the last year. On far too many occasions, customers have not been able to purchase the bread of their choice. Because of the size of the store, no new ovens can be added. At a staff meeting, one employee suggested ways to load the ovens differently so that more loaves of bread can be baked at one time. This new process will require that the ovens be loaded by hand, requiring additional manpower. This is the only thing to be changed. (Productivity remains the same.) (Hint: Each worker works 160 hours per month.) If the bakery currently makes 1,500 loaves per month with a labor productivity of 2.344 loaves per labor hour, then Lackey will need to add __ worker(s) to meet the increased demand (recall that each worker works 160 hours per month and round your response up to the next whole number).
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- Paladin Company manufactures plain-paper fax machines in a small factory in Minnesota. Sales have increased by 50 percent in each of the past three years, as Paladin has expanded its market from the United States to Canada and Mexico. As a result, the Minnesota factory is at capacity. Beryl Adams, president of Paladin, has examined the situation and developed the following alternatives. 1. Add a permanent second shift at the plant. However, the semiskilled workers who assemble the fax machines are in short supply, and the wage rate of 15 per hour would probably have to be increased across the board to 18 per hour in order to attract sufficient workers from out of town. The total wage increase (including fringe benefits) would amount to 125,000. The heavier use of plant facilities would lead to increased plant maintenance and small tool cost. 2. Open a new plant and locate it in Mexico. Wages (including fringe benefits) would average 3.50 per hour. Investment in plant and equipment would amount to 300,000. 3. Open a new plant and locate it in a foreign trade zone, possibly in Dallas. Wages would be somewhat lower than in Minnesota, but higher than in Mexico. The advantages of postponing tariff payments on parts imported from Asia could amount to 50,000 per year. Required: Advise Beryl of the advantages and disadvantages of each of her alternatives.Bienestar, Inc., has two plants that manufacture a line of wheelchairs. One is located in Kansas City, and the other in Tulsa. Each plant is set up as a profit center. During the past year, both plants sold their tilt wheelchair model for 1,620. Sales volume averages 20,000 units per year in each plant. Recently, the Kansas City plant reduced the price of the tilt model to 1,440. Discussion with the Kansas City manager revealed that the price reduction was possible because the plant had reduced its manufacturing and selling costs by reducing what was called non-value-added costs. The Kansas City manufacturing and selling costs for the tilt model were 1,260 per unit. The Kansas City manager offered to loan the Tulsa plant his cost accounting manager to help it achieve similar results. The Tulsa plant manager readily agreed, knowing that his plant must keep pacenot only with the Kansas City plant but also with competitors. A local competitor had also reduced its price on a similar model, and Tulsas marketing manager had indicated that the price must be matched or sales would drop dramatically. In fact, the marketing manager suggested that if the price were dropped to 1,404 by the end of the year, the plant could expand its share of the market by 20 percent. The plant manager agreed but insisted that the current profit per unit must be maintained. He also wants to know if the plant can at least match the 1,260 per-unit cost of the Kansas City plant and if the plant can achieve the cost reduction using the approach of the Kansas City plant. The plant controller and the Kansas City cost accounting manager have assembled the following data for the most recent year. The actual cost of inputs, their value-added (ideal) quantity levels, and the actual quantity levels are provided (for production of 20,000 units). Assume there is no difference between actual prices of activity units and standard prices. Required: 1. Calculate the target cost for expanding the Tulsa plants market share by 20 percent, assuming that the per-unit profitability is maintained as requested by the plant manager. 2. Calculate the non-value-added cost per unit. Assuming that non-value-added costs can be reduced to zero, can the Tulsa plant match the Kansas City per-unit cost? Can the target cost for expanding market share be achieved? What actions would you take if you were the plant manager? 3. Describe the role that benchmarking played in the effort of the Tulsa plant to protect and improve its competitive position.Paladin Company manufactures plain paper fax machines in a small factory in Minnesota Sales have increased by 50% in each of the past 3 years, as Paladin has expanded its market from the United States to Canada and Mexico. As a result, the Minnesota factory is at capacity. Beryl Adams, president of Paladin, has examined the situation and developed the following alternatives: 1. Add a permanent second shift at the plant. However, the semiskilled workers who assemble the fax machines are in short supply, and the wage rate of 15 per hour would probably have to be increased across the board to 18 per hour in order to attract sufficient workers from out of town. The total wage increase (including fringe benefits) would amount to 125,000. The heavier use of plant facilities would lead to increased plant maintenance and small tool cost. 2. Open a new plant and locate it in Mexico. Wages (including fringe benefits) would average 3.50 per hour. Investment in plant and equipment would amount to 300,000. 3. Open a new plant and locate it in a foreign trade zone, possibly in Dallas. Wages would be somewhat lower than in Minnesota, but higher than in Mexico. The advantages of postponing tariff payments on imported parts could amount to 50,000 per year. Required: Advise Beryl of the advantages and disadvantages of each of her alternatives.
- Hogs & Dawgs is an ice cream parlor on the border of north-central Louisiana and southern Arkansas that serves 43 flavors of ice creams, sherbets, frozen yogurts, and sorbets. During the summer Hogs & Dawgs is open from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Monday through Saturday, and the owner believes that sales change systematically from hour to hour throughout the day. She also believes her sales increase as the outdoor temperature increases. Hourly sales and the outside temperature at the start of each hour for the last week are provided in the file IceCreamSales. Construct a time series plot of hourly sales and a scatter plot of outdoor temperature and hourly sales. What types of relationships exist in the data? Use a simple regression model with outside temperature as the causal variable to develop an equation to account for the relationship between outside temperature and hourly sales in the data. Based on this model, compute an estimate of hourly sales for today from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. if the temperature at 2:00 p.m. is 93°F. Use a multiple linear regression model with the causal variable outside temperature and dummy variables as follows to develop an equation to account for both seasonal effects and the relationship between outside temperature and hourly sales in the data in the data: Hour1 = 1 if the sales were recorded between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., 0 otherwise; Hour2 = 1 if the sales were recorded between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., 0 otherwise; Hour8 = 1 if the sales were recorded between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., 0 otherwise. Note that when the values of the 8 dummy variables are equal to 0, the observation corresponds to the 9:00-to-l0:00-p.m. hour. Based on this model, compute an estimate of hourly sales for today from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. if the temperature at 2:00 p.m. is 93°F. Is the model you developed in part (b) or the model you developed in part (c) more effective? Justify your answer.NoFat manufactures one product, olestra, and sells it to large potato chip manufacturers as the key ingredient in nonfat snack foods, including Ruffles, Lays, Doritos, and Tostitos brand products. For each of the past 3 years, sales of olestra have been far less than the expected annual volume of 125,000 pounds. Therefore, the company has ended each year with significant unused capacity. Due to a short shelf life, NoFat must sell every pound of olestra that it produces each year. As a result, NoFats controller, Allyson Ashley, has decided to seek out potential special sales offers from other companies. One company, Patterson Union (PU)a toxic waste cleanup companyoffered to buy 10,000 pounds of olestra from NoFat during December for a price of 2.20 per pound. PU discovered through its research that olestra has proven to be very effective in cleaning up toxic waste locations designated as Superfund Sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Allyson was excited, noting that This is another way to use our expensive olestra plant! The annual costs incurred by NoFat to produce and sell 100,000 pounds of olestra are as follows: In addition, Allyson met with several of NoFats key production managers and discovered the following information: The special order could be produced without incurring any additional marketing or customer service costs. NoFat owns the aging plant facility that it uses to manufacture olestra. NoFat incurs costs to set up and clean its machines for each production run, or batch, of olestra that it produces. The total setup costs shown in the previous table represent the production of 20 batches during the year. NoFat leases its plant machinery. The lease agreement is negotiated and signed on the first day of each year. NoFat currently leases enough machinery to produce 125,000 pounds of olestra. PU requires that an independent quality team inspects any facility from which it makes purchases. The terms of the special sales offer would require NoFat to bear the 1,000 cost of the inspection team. Based solely on financial factors, explain why NoFat should accept or reject PUs special sales offer.NoFat manufactures one product, olestra, and sells it to large potato chip manufacturers as the key ingredient in nonfat snack foods, including Ruffles, Lays, Doritos, and Tostitos brand products. For each of the past 3 years, sales of olestra have been far less than the expected annual volume of 125,000 pounds. Therefore, the company has ended each year with significant unused capacity. Due to a short shelf life, NoFat must sell every pound of olestra that it produces each year. As a result, NoFats controller, Allyson Ashley, has decided to seek out potential special sales offers from other companies. One company, Patterson Union (PU)a toxic waste cleanup companyoffered to buy 10,000 pounds of olestra from NoFat during December for a price of 2.20 per pound. PU discovered through its research that olestra has proven to be very effective in cleaning up toxic waste locations designated as Superfund Sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Allyson was excited, noting that This is another way to use our expensive olestra plant! The annual costs incurred by NoFat to produce and sell 100,000 pounds of olestra are as follows: In addition, Allyson met with several of NoFats key production managers and discovered the following information: The special order could be produced without incurring any additional marketing or customer service costs. NoFat owns the aging plant facility that it uses to manufacture olestra. NoFat incurs costs to set up and clean its machines for each production run, or batch, of olestra that it produces. The total setup costs shown in the previous table represent the production of 20 batches during the year. NoFat leases its plant machinery. The lease agreement is negotiated and signed on the first day of each year. NoFat currently leases enough machinery to produce 125,000 pounds of olestra. PU requires that an independent quality team inspects any facility from which it makes purchases. The terms of the special sales offer would require NoFat to bear the 1,000 cost of the inspection team. Assume for this question that NoFat rejected PUs special sales offer because the 2.20 price suggested by PU was too low. In response to the rejection, PU asked NoFat to determine the price at which it would be willing to accept the special sales offer. For its regular sales, NoFat sets prices by marking up variable costs by 10%. If Allyson decides to use NoFats 10% markup pricing method to set the price for PUs special sales offer, a. Calculate the price that NoFat would charge PU for each pound of olestra. b. Calculate the relevant profit that NoFat would earn if it set the special sales price by using its markup pricing method. (Hint: Use the estimate of relevant costs that you calculated in response to Requirement 1b.) c. Explain why NoFat should accept or reject the special sales offer if it uses its markup pricing method to set the special sales price.
- NoFat manufactures one product, olestra, and sells it to large potato chip manufacturers as the key ingredient in nonfat snack foods, including Ruffles, Lays, Doritos, and Tostitos brand products. For each of the past 3 years, sales of olestra have been far less than the expected annual volume of 125,000 pounds. Therefore, the company has ended each year with significant unused capacity. Due to a short shelf life, NoFat must sell every pound of olestra that it produces each year. As a result, NoFats controller, Allyson Ashley, has decided to seek out potential special sales offers from other companies. One company, Patterson Union (PU)a toxic waste cleanup companyoffered to buy 10,000 pounds of olestra from NoFat during December for a price of 2.20 per pound. PU discovered through its research that olestra has proven to be very effective in cleaning up toxic waste locations designated as Superfund Sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Allyson was excited, noting that This is another way to use our expensive olestra plant! The annual costs incurred by NoFat to produce and sell 100,000 pounds of olestra are as follows: In addition, Allyson met with several of NoFats key production managers and discovered the following information: The special order could be produced without incurring any additional marketing or customer service costs. NoFat owns the aging plant facility that it uses to manufacture olestra. NoFat incurs costs to set up and clean its machines for each production run, or batch, of olestra that it produces. The total setup costs shown in the previous table represent the production of 20 batches during the year. NoFat leases its plant machinery. The lease agreement is negotiated and signed on the first day of each year. NoFat currently leases enough machinery to produce 125,000 pounds of olestra. PU requires that an independent quality team inspects any facility from which it makes purchases. The terms of the special sales offer would require NoFat to bear the 1,000 cost of the inspection team. Assume for this question that Allysons relevant analysis reveals that NoFat would earn a positive relevant profit of 10,000 from the special sale (i.e., the special sales alternative). However, after conducting this traditional, short-term relevant analysis, Allyson wonders whether it might be more profitable over the long term to downsize the company by reducing its manufacturing capacity (i.e., its plant machinery and plant facility). She is aware that downsizing requires a multiyear time horizon because companies usually cannot increase or decrease fixed plant assets every year. Therefore, Allyson has decided to use a 5-year time horizon in her long-term decision analysis. She has identified the following information regarding capacity downsizing (i.e., the downsizing alternative): The plant facility consists of several buildings. If it chooses to downsize its capacity, NoFat can immediately sell one of the buildings to an adjacent business for 30,000. If it chooses to downsize its capacity, NoFats annual lease cost for plant machinery will decrease to 9,000. Therefore, Allyson must choose between these two alternatives: Accept the special sales offer each year and earn a 10,000 relevant profit for each of the next 5 years or reject the special sales offer and downsize as described above. Assume that NoFat pays for all costs with cash. Also, assume a 10% discount rate, a 5-year time horizon, and all cash flows occur at the end of the year. Using an NPV approach to discount future cash flows to present value, a. Calculate the NPV of accepting the special sale with the assumed positive relevant profit of 10,000 per year (i.e., the special sales alternative). b. Calculate the NPV of downsizing capacity as previously described (i.e., the downsizing alternative). c. Based on the NPV of Requirements 5a and 5b, identify and explain which of these two alternatives is best for NoFat to pursue in the long term.Garrison Boutique, a small novelty store, just spent $4,000 on a new software program that will help in organizing its inventory. Due to the steep learning curve required to use the new software, Garrison must decide between hiring two part-time college students or one full-time employee. Each college student would work 20 hours per week, and would earn $1 S per hour. The full-time employee would work 40 hours per week and would earn $15 per hour plus the equivalent of $2 per hour in benefits. Employees are given two polo shirts to wear as their uniform. The polo-shirts cost Garrison $10 each. What are the relevant costs, relevant revenues, sunk costs, and opportunity costs for Garrison?At the beginning of the last quarter of 20x1, Youngston, Inc., a consumer products firm, hired Maria Carrillo to take over one of its divisions. The division manufactured small home appliances and was struggling to survive in a very competitive market. Maria immediately requested a projected income statement for 20x1. In response, the controller provided the following statement: After some investigation, Maria soon realized that the products being produced had a serious problem with quality. She once again requested a special study by the controllers office to supply a report on the level of quality costs. By the middle of November, Maria received the following report from the controller: Maria was surprised at the level of quality costs. They represented 30 percent of sales, which was certainly excessive. She knew that the division had to produce high-quality products to survive. The number of defective units produced needed to be reduced dramatically. Thus, Maria decided to pursue a quality-driven turnaround strategy. Revenue growth and cost reduction could both be achieved if quality could be improved. By growing revenues and decreasing costs, profitability could be increased. After meeting with the managers of production, marketing, purchasing, and human resources, Maria made the following decisions, effective immediately (end of November 20x1): a. More will be invested in employee training. Workers will be trained to detect quality problems and empowered to make improvements. Workers will be allowed a bonus of 10 percent of any cost savings produced by their suggested improvements. b. Two design engineers will be hired immediately, with expectations of hiring one or two more within a year. These engineers will be in charge of redesigning processes and products with the objective of improving quality. They will also be given the responsibility of working with selected suppliers to help improve the quality of their products and processes. Design engineers were considered a strategic necessity. c. Implement a new process: evaluation and selection of suppliers. This new process has the objective of selecting a group of suppliers that are willing and capable of providing nondefective components. d. Effective immediately, the division will begin inspecting purchased components. According to production, many of the quality problems are caused by defective components purchased from outside suppliers. Incoming inspection is viewed as a transitional activity. Once the division has developed a group of suppliers capable of delivering nondefective components, this activity will be eliminated. e. Within three years, the goal is to produce products with a defect rate less than 0.10 percent. By reducing the defect rate to this level, marketing is confident that market share will increase by at least 50 percent (as a consequence of increased customer satisfaction). Products with better quality will help establish an improved product image and reputation, allowing the division to capture new customers and increase market share. f. Accounting will be given the charge to install a quality information reporting system. Daily reports on operational quality data (e.g., percentage of defective units), weekly updates of trend graphs (posted throughout the division), and quarterly cost reports are the types of information required. g. To help direct the improvements in quality activities, kaizen costing is to be implemented. For example, for the year 20x1, a kaizen standard of 6 percent of the selling price per unit was set for rework costs, a 25 percent reduction from the current actual cost. To ensure that the quality improvements were directed and translated into concrete financial outcomes, Maria also began to implement a Balanced Scorecard for the division. By the end of 20x2, progress was being made. Sales had increased to 26,000,000, and the kaizen improvements were meeting or beating expectations. For example, rework costs had dropped to 1,500,000. At the end of 20x3, two years after the turnaround quality strategy was implemented, Maria received the following quality cost report: Maria also received an income statement for 20x3: Maria was pleased with the outcomes. Revenues had grown, and costs had been reduced by at least as much as she had projected for the two-year period. Growth next year should be even greater as she was beginning to observe a favorable effect from the higher-quality products. Also, further quality cost reductions should materialize as incoming inspections were showing much higher-quality purchased components. Required: 1. Identify the strategic objectives, classified by the Balanced Scorecard perspective. Next, suggest measures for each objective. 2. Using the results from Requirement 1, describe Marias strategy using a series of if-then statements. Next, prepare a strategy map. 3. Explain how you would evaluate the success of the quality-driven turnaround strategy. What additional information would you like to have for this evaluation? 4. Explain why Maria felt that the Balanced Scorecard would increase the likelihood that the turnaround strategy would actually produce good financial outcomes. 5. Advise Maria on how to encourage her employees to align their actions and behavior with the turnaround strategy.
- Wright Plastic Products is a small company that specialized in the production of plastic dinner plates until several years ago. Although profits for the company had been good, they have been declining in recent years because of increased competition. Many competitors offer a full range of plastic products, and management felt that this created a competitive disadvantage. The output of the companys plants was exclusively devoted to plastic dinner plates. Three years ago, management made a decision to add additional product lines. They determined that existing idle capacity in each plant could easily be adapted to produce other plastic products. Each plant would produce one additional product line. For example, the Atlanta plant would add a line of plastic cups. Moreover, the variable cost of producing a package of cups (one dozen) was virtually identical to that of a package of plastic plates. (Variable costs referred to here are those that change in total as the units produced change. The costs include direct materials, direct labor, and unit-based variable overhead such as power and other machine costs.) Since the fixed expenses would not change, the new product was forecast to increase profits significantly (for the Atlanta plant). Two years after the addition of the new product line, the profits of the Atlanta plant (as well as other plants) had not improvedin fact, they had dropped. Upon investigation, the president of the company discovered that profits had not increased as expected because the so-called fixed cost pool had increased dramatically. The president interviewed the manager of each support department at the Atlanta plant. Typical responses from four of those managers are given next. Materials handling: The additional batches caused by the cups increased the demand for materials handling. We had to add one forklift and hire additional materials handling labor. Inspection: Inspecting cups is more complicated than plastic plates. We only inspect a sample drawn from every batch, but you need to understand that the number of batches has increased with this new product line. We had to hire more inspection labor. Purchasing: The new line increased the number of purchase orders. We had to use more resources to handle this increased volume. Accounting: There were more transactions to process than before. We had to increase our staff. Required: 1. Explain why the results of adding the new product line were not accurately projected. 2. Could this problem have been avoided with an activity-based cost management system? If so, would you recommend that the company adopt this type of system? Explain and discuss the differences between an activity-based cost management system and a traditional cost management system.Gaston Company manufactures furniture. One of its product lines is an economy-line kitchen table. During the last year, Gaston produced and sold 100,000 units for 100 per unit. Sales of the table are on a bid basis, but Gaston has always been able to win sufficient bids using the 100 price. This year, however, Gaston was losing more than its share of bids. Concerned, Larry Franklin, owner and president of the company, called a meeting of his executive committee (Megan Johnson, marketing manager; Fred Davis, quality manager; Kevin Jones, production manager; and Helen Jackson, controller). LARRY: I dont understand why were losing bids. Megan, do you have an explanation? MEGAN: Yes, as a matter of fact. Two competitors have lowered their price to 92 per unit. Thats too big a difference for most of our buyers to ignore. If we want to keep selling our 100,000 units per year, we will need to lower our price to 92. Otherwise, our sales will drop to about 20,000 to 25,000 per year. HELEN: The unit contribution margin on the table is 10. Lowering the price to 92 will cost us 8 per unit. Based on a sales volume of 100,000, wed make 200,000 in contribution margin. If we keep the price at 100, our contribution margin would be 200,000 to 250,000. If we have to lose, lets just take the lower market share. Its better than lowering our prices. MEGAN: Perhaps. But the same thing could happen to some of our other product lines. My sources tell me that these two companies are on the tail end of a major quality improvement programone that allows them significant savings. We need to rethink our whole competitive strategyat least if we want to stay in business. Ideally, we should match the price reduction and work to reduce the costs to recapture the lost contribution margin. FRED: I think I have something to offer. We are about to embark on a new quality improvement program of our own. I have brought the following estimates of the current quality costs for this economy line. As you can see, these costs run about 16 percent of current sales. Thats excessive, and we believe that they can be reduced to about 4 percent of sales over time. LARRY: This sounds good. Fred, how long will it take for you to achieve this reduction? FRED: All these costs vary with sales level, so Ill express their reduction rate in those terms. Our best guess is that we can reduce these costs by about 1 percent of sales per quarter. So it should take about 12 quarters, or three years, to achieve the full benefit. Keep in mind that this is with an improvement in quality. MEGAN: This offers us some hope. If we meet the price immediately, we can maintain our market share. Furthermore, if we can ever reach the point of reducing the price below the 92 level, then we can increase our market share. I estimate that we can increase sales by about 10,000 units for every 1 of price reduction beyond the 92 level. Kevin, how much extra capacity for this line do we have? KEVIN: We can handle an extra 30,000 or 40,000 tables per year. Required: 1. Assume that Gaston immediately reduces the bid price to 92. How long will it be before the unit contribution margin is restored to 10, assuming that quality costs are reduced as expected and that sales are maintained at 100,000 units per year (25,000 per quarter)? 2. Assume that Gaston holds the price at 92 until the 4 percent target is achieved. At this new level of quality costs, should the price be reduced? If so, by how much should the price be reduced, and what is the increase in contribution margin? Assume that price can be reduced only in 1 increments. 3. Assume that Gaston immediately reduces the price to 92 and begins the quality improvement program. Now, suppose that Gaston does not wait until the end of the three-year period before reducing prices. Instead, prices will be reduced when profitable to do so. Assume that prices can be reduced only by 1 increments. Identify when the first future price change should occur (if any). 4. Discuss the differences in viewpoints concerning the decision to decrease prices and the short-run contribution margin analysis done by Helen, the controller. Did quality cost information play an important role in the strategic decision making illustrated by the problem?Elliott, Inc., has four salaried clerks to process purchase orders. Each clerk is paid a salary of 25,750 and is capable of processing as many as 6,500 purchase orders per year. Each clerk uses a PC and laser printer in processing orders. Time available on each PC system is sufficient to process 6,500 orders per year. The cost of each PC system is 1,100 per year. In addition to the salaries, Elliott spends 27,560 for forms, postage, and other supplies (assuming 26,000 purchase orders are processed). During the year, 25,350 orders were processed. Required: 1. Classify the resources associated with purchasing as (1) flexible or (2) committed. 2. Compute the total activity availability, and break this into activity usage and unused activity. 3. Calculate the total cost of resources supplied (activity cost), and break this into the cost of activity used and the cost of unused activity. 4. (a) Suppose that a large special order will cause an additional 500 purchase orders. What purchasing costs are relevant? By how much will purchasing costs increase if the order is accepted? (b) Suppose that the special order causes 700 additional purchase orders. How will your answer to (a) change?
