Horton Manufacturing Incorporated produces blinds and other window treatments for residential homes and offices. The owner is concerned about the maintenance costs for the production machinery because maintenance costs for the previous fiscal year were higher than he expected. The owner has asked you to assist in estimating future maintenance costs to better predict the firm's profitability. Together, you have determined that the best cost driver for maintenance costs is machine hours. The data from the previous fiscal year for maintenance costs and machine hours follow: Month Maintenance Costs Machine Hours $ 2,665 2,710 2,760 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 2,860 2,895 Maintenance cost 3,045 2,905 2,945 2,820 2,610 2,630 2,930 1,566 1,670 1,685 1,735 1,855 1,890 1,865 1,885 1,775 1,450 1,630 1,465 Required: 1. Use the high-low method to estimate the fixed and variable portions for maintenance costs. (In your calculations, round "slope (unit variable cost)" to 4 decimal places. Enter the "slope (unit variable cost)" rounded to 4 decimal places and all other calculations, to nearest whole dollar.) ✓ Answer is complete and correct. S 0.9886 1,177 + X M = Machine Hours 3. Calculate the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for the cost equation you developed in requirement 1. (Input your final answer as a percentage rounded to 1 decimal place (i.e., .054 = 5.4%).) Answer is complete but not entirely correct. 7.3 X % Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE)
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- Jensen Tire Auto is deciding whether to purchase a maintenance contract for its new computer wheel alignment and balancing machine. Managers feel that maintenance expense should be related to usage, and they collected the following information on weekly usage (hours) and annual maintenance expense (in hundreds of dollars). a. Develop a scatter chart with weekly usage hours as the independent variable. What does the scatter chart indicate about the relationship between weekly usage and annual maintenance expense? b. Use the data to develop an estimated regression equation that could be used to predict the annual maintenance expense for a given number of hours of weekly usage. What is the estimated regression model? c. Test whether each of the regression parameters 0 and 1 is equal to zero at a 0.05 level of significance. What are the correct interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? Are these interpretations reasonable? d. How much of the variation in the sample values of annual maintenance expense does the model you estimated in part (b) explain? e. If the maintenance contract costs 3,000 per year, would you recommend purchasing it? Why or why not?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.Johnson Filtration. Inc., provides maintenance service for water filtration systems throughout southern Florida. Customers contact Johnson with requests for maintenance service on their water filtration systems. To estimate the service time and the service cost. Johnson’s managers want to predict the repair time necessary for each maintenance request. Hence, repair time in hours is the dependent variable. Repair time is believed to be related to three factors: the number of months since the last maintenance service, the type of repair problem (mechanical or electrical), and the repairperson who performs the repair (Donna Newton or Bob Jones). Data for a sample of 10 service calls are reported in the following table: Develop the simple linear regression equation to predict repair time given the number of months since the last maintenance service, and use the results to test the hypothesis that no relationship exists between repair time and the number of months since the last maintenance service at the 0.05 level of significance. What is the interpretation of this relationship? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Using the simple linear regression model developed in part (a), calculate the predicted repair time and residual for each of the 10 repairs in the data. Sort the data in ascending order by value of the residual. Do you see any pattern in the residuals for the two types of repair? Do you see any pattern in the residuals for the two repairpersons? Do these results suggest any potential modifications to your simple linear regression model? Now create a scatter chart with months since last service on the x-axis and repair time in hours on the y-axis for which the points representing electrical and mechanical repairs are shown in different shapes and/or colors. Create a similar scatter chart of months since last service and repair time in hours for which the points representing repairs by Bob Jones and Donna Newton are shown in different shapes and/or colors. Do these charts and the results of your residual analysis suggest the same potential modifications to your simple linear regression model? Create a new dummy variable that is equal to zero if the type of repair is mechanical and one if the type of repair is electrical. Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service and the type of repair. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Create a new dummy variable that is equal to zero if the repairperson is Bob Jones and one if the repairperson is Donna Newton. Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service and the repairperson. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service, the type of repair, and the repairperson. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Which of these models would you use? Why?
- Ventana Window and Wall Treatments Company provides draperies, shades, and various window treatments. Ventana works with the customer to design the appropriate window treatment, places the order, and installs the finished product. Direct materials and direct labor costs are easy to trace to the jobs. Ventanas income statement for last year is as follows: Ventana wants to find a markup on cost of goods sold that will allow them to earn about the same amount of profit on each job as was earned last year. Required: 1. What is the markup on cost of goods sold (COGS) that will maintain the same profit as last year? (Round the percentage to two significant digits.) 2. A customer orders draperies and shades for a remodeling job. The job will have the following costs: What is the price that Ventana will quote given the markup percentage calculated in Requirement 1? (Round the price to the nearest dollar.) 3. What if Ventana wants to calculate a markup on direct materials cost, since it is the largest cost of doing business? What is the markup on direct materials cost that will maintain the same profit as last year? (Round the percentage to two significant digits.) What is the bid price Ventana will use for the job given in Requirement 2 if the markup percentage is calculated on the basis of direct materials cost? (Round to the nearest dollar.)Boston Executive. Inc., produces executive limousines and currently manufactures the mini-bar inset at these costs: The company received an offer from Elite Mini-Bars to produce the insets for $2,100 per Unit and supply 1,000 mini-bars for the coming years estimated production. If the company accepts this offer and shuts down production of this part of the business, production workers and supervisors will be reassigned to other areas. Assume that for the short-term decision-making process demonstrated in this problem, the companys total labor costs (direct labor and supervisor salaries) will remain the same if the bar inserts are purchased. The specialized equipment cannot be used and has no market value. However, the space occupied by the mini bar production can be used by a different production group that will lease it for $55,000 per year. Should the company make or buy the mini-bar insert?Mantenga Company provides routine maintenance services for heavy moving and transportation vehicles. Although the vehicles vary, the maintenance services provided follow a fairly standard pattern. Recently, a potential customer has approached the company, requesting a new maintenance service for a radically different type of vehicle. New servicing equipment and some new labor skills will be needed to provide the maintenance service. The customer is placing an initial order to service 150 vehicles and has indicated that if the service is satisfactory, several additional orders of the same size will be placed every 3 months over the next 3 to 5 years. Mantenga uses a standard costing system and wants to develop a set of standards for the new vehicle. The usage standards for direct materials such as oil, lubricants, and transmission fluids were easily established. The usage standard is 25 quarts per servicing, with a standard cost of 4 per quart. Management has also decided on standard rates for labor and overhead. The standard labor rate is 15 per direct labor hour, the standard variable overhead rate is 8 per direct labor hour, and the standard fixed overhead rate is 12 per direct labor hour. The only remaining decision is the standard for labor usage. To assist in developing this standard, the engineering department has estimated the following relationship between units serviced and average direct labor hours used: As the workers learn more about servicing the new vehicles, they become more efficient, and the average time needed to service one unit declines. Engineering estimates that all of the learning effects will be achieved by the time that 320 units are produced. No further improvement will be realized past this level. Required: 1. Assume that the average labor time is 0.768 hour per unit after the learning effects are achieved. Using this information, prepare a standard cost sheet that details the standard service cost per unit. (Note: Round costs to two decimal places.) 2. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Given the per-unit labor standard set, would you expect a favorable or an unfavorable labor efficiency? Explain. Calculate the labor efficiency variance for servicing the first 320 units. 3. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Assuming no further improvement in labor time per unit is possible past 320 units, explain why the cumulative average time per unit at 640 units is lower than the time at 320 units. Show that the standard labor time should be 0.768 hour per unit. Explain why this value is a good choice for the per-unit labor standard.
- Communications Jamarcus Bradshaw, plant manager of Georgia Paper Companys papermaking mill, was looking over the cost of production reports for July and August for the Papermaking Department. The reports revealed the following: Jamarcus was concerned about the increased cost per ton from the output of the department. As a result, he asked the plant controller to perform a study to help explain these results. The controller, Leann Brunswick, began the analysis by performing some interviews of key plant personnel in order to understand what the problem might be. Excerpts from an interview with Len Tyson, a paper machine operator, follow: Len: We have two papermaking machines in the department. I have no data, but I think paper machine No. 1 is applying too much pulp and, thus, is wasting both conversion and materials resources. We haven't had repairs on paper machine No. 1 in a while. Maybe this is the problem. Leann: How does too much pulp result in wasted resources? Len: Well, you see, if too much pulp is applied, then we will waste pulp material. The customer will not pay for the extra product; we just use more material to make the product. Also, when there is too much pulp, the machine must be slowed down in order to complete the drying process. This results in additional conversion costs. Leann: Do you have any other suspicions? Len: Well, as you know, we have two productsgreen paper and yellow paper. They are identical except for the color. The color is added to the papermaking process in the paper machine. I think that during August these two color papers have been behaving very differently. I don't have any data, but it just seems as though the amount of waste associated with the green paper has increased. Leann: Why is this? Len: I understand that there has been a change in specifications for the green paper, starting near the beginning of August. This change could be causing the machines to run poorly when making green paper. If this is the case, the cost per ton would increase for green paper. Leann also asked for a database printout providing greater detail on Augusts operating results. September 9 Requested by: Leann Brunswick Papermaking DepartmentAugust detail Prior to preparing a report, Leann resigned from Georgia Paper Company to start her own business. You have been asked to take the data that Leann collected, and write a memo to Jamarcus Bradshaw with a recommendation to management. Your memo should include analysis of the August data to determine whether the paper machine or the paper color explains the increase in the unit cost from July. Include any supporting schedules that are appropriate. Round any calculations to the nearest cent.Suppose that Kicker had the following sales and cost experience (in thousands of dollars) for May of the current year and for May of the prior year: In May of the prior year, Kicker started an intensive quality program designed to enable it to build original equipment manufacture (OEM) speaker systems for a major automobile company. The program was housed in research and development. In the beginning of the current year, Kickers accounting department exercised tighter control over sales commissions, ensuring that no dubious (e.g., double) payments were made. The increased sales in the current year required additional warehouse space that Kicker rented in town. (Round ratios to four decimal places. Round sales dollars computations to the nearest dollar.) Required: 1. Calculate the contribution margin ratio for May of both years. 2. Calculate the break-even point in sales dollars for both years. 3. Calculate the margin of safety in sales dollars for both years. 4. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Analyze the differences shown by your calculations in Requirements 1, 2, and 3.Classify Costs Following is a list of various costs incurred in producing replacement automobile parts. With respect to the production and sale of these auto parts, classify each cost as either variable, fixed, or mixed. 1. Oil used in manufacturing equipment 2. Plastic 3. Property taxes, 165,000 per year on factory building and equipment 4. Salary of plant manager 5. Cost of labor for hourly workers 6. Packaging 7. Factory cleaning costs, 6,000 per month 8. Metal 9. Rent on warehouse, 10,000 per month plus 25 per square foot of storage used 10. Property insurance premiums, 3,600 per month plus 0.01 for each dollar of property over 1,200,000 11. Straight-line depreciation on the production equipment 12. Hourly wages of machine operators 13. Electricity costs, 0.20 per kilowatt-hour 14. Computer chip (purchased from a vendor) 15. Pension cost, 1.00 per employee hour on the job
- Miller Minerals Co. manufactures a product that requires the use of a considerable amount of natural gas to heat it to a desired temperature. The process requires a constant level of heat, so the furnaces are maintained at a set temperature for 24 hours a day. Although units are not continuously processed, management desires that the variable cost be charged directly to the product and the fixed cost to the factory overhead. The following data have been collected for the year: Required: 1. Separate the variable and fixed elements, using the high-low method. 2. Determine the variable cost to be charged to the product for the year. (Hint: First determine the number of annual units produced.) 3. Determine the fixed cost to be charged to factory overhead for the year.Roper Furniture manufactures office furniture and tracks cost data across their process. The following are some of the costs that they incur. Classify these costs as fixed or variable costs, and as product costs or period costs. Wood used to produce desks ($125,00 per desk) Production labor used to produce desks ($15 per hour) Production supervisor salary ($45,000 per year) Depreciation on factory equipment ($60,000 per year) Selling and administrative expenses ($45,000 per year) Rent on corporate office ($44,000 per year) Nails, glue, and other materials required to produce desks (varies per desk) Utilities expenses for production facility Sales staff commission (5% of gross sales)Emery Manufacturing Company produces component parts for the farm equipment industry and has recently undergone a major computer system conversion. Jake Murray, the controller, has established a troubleshooting team to alleviate accounting problems that have occurred since the conversion. Jake has chosen Gus Swanson, assistant controller, to head the team that will include Linda Wheeler, cost accountant; Cindy Madsen, financial analyst; Randy Lewis, general accounting supervisor; and Max Crandall, financial accountant. The team has been meeting weekly for the last month. Gus insists on being part of all the team conversations in order to gather information, to make the final decision on any ideas or actions that the team develops, and to prepare a weekly report for Jake. He has also used this team as a forum to discuss issues and disputes about him and other members of Emerys top management team. At last weeks meeting, Gus told the team that he thought a competitor might purchase the common stock of Emery, because he had overheard Jake talking about this on the telephone. As a result, most of Emerys employees now informally discuss the sale of Emerys common stock and how it will affect their jobs. Required: Is Gus Swansons discussion with the team about the prospective sale of Emery unethical? Discuss, citing specific standards from the code of ethical conduct to support your position. (CMA adapted)