Concept explainers
Interpreting regression results. Spirit Freightways is a leader in transporting agricultural products in the western provinces of Canada. Reese Brown, a financial analyst at Spirit Freightways, is studying the behavior of transportation costs for budgeting purposes. Transportation costs at Spirit are of two types: (a) operating costs (such as labor and fuel) and (b) maintenance costs (primarily overhaul of vehicles). Brown gathers monthly data on each type of cost, as well as the total freight miles traveled by Spirit vehicles in each month. The data collected are shown below (all in thousands):
- 1. Conduct a regression using the monthly data of operating costs on freight miles. You should obtain the following result:
Regression: Operating costs = a + (b × Number of freight miles)
- 2. Plot the data and regression line for the above estimation. Evaluate the regression using the criteria of economic plausibility, goodness of fit, and slope of the regression line.
- 3. Brown expects Spirit to generate, on average, 3,600 freight miles each month next year. How much in operating costs should Brown budget for next year?
- 4. Name three variables, other than freight miles, that Brown might expect to be important cost drivers for Spirit’s operating costs.
- 5. Brown next conducts a regression using the monthly data of maintenance costs on freight miles. Verify that she obtained the following result:
Regression: Maintenance costs = a + (b × Number of freight miles)
- 6. Provide a reasoned explanation for the observed sign on the cost driver variable in the maintenance cost regression. What alternative data or alternative regression specifications would you like to use to better capture the above relationship?
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HORNGRENS COST ACCOUNTING W/ACCESS
- The controller for Dohini Manufacturing Company felt that the number of purchase orders alone did not explain the monthly purchasing cost. He knew that nonstandard orders (for example, one requiring an overseas supplier) took more time and effort. He collected data on the number of nonstandard orders for the past 12 months and added that information to the data on purchasing cost and total number of purchase orders. Multiple regression was run on the above data; the coefficients shown by the regression program are: Required: 1. Construct the cost formula for the purchasing activity showing the fixed cost and the variable rate. 2. If Dohini Manufacturing Company estimates that next month will have 430 total purchase orders and 45 nonstandard orders, what is the total estimated purchasing cost for that month? (Round your answer to the nearest dollar.) 3. What if Dohini Manufacturing wants to estimate purchasing cost for the coming year and expects 5,340 purchase orders and 580 nonstandard orders? What will estimated total purchasing cost be? What is the total fixed purchasing cost? Why doesnt it equal the fixed cost calculated in Requirement 2? (Round your answers to the nearest dollar.)arrow_forwardUchdorf Manufacturing just completed a study of its purchasing activity with the objective of improving its efficiency. The driver for the activity is number of purchase orders. The following data pertain to the activity for the most recent year: Activity supply: five purchasing agents capable of processing 2,400 orders per year (12,000 orders) Purchasing agent cost (salary): 45,600 per year Actual usage: 10,600 orders per year Value-added quantity: 7,000 orders per year Required: 1. Calculate the volume variance and explain its significance. 2. Calculate the unused capacity variance and explain its use. 3. What if the actual usage drops to 9,000 orders? What effect will this have on capacity management? What will be the level of spending reduction if the value-added standard is met?arrow_forwardThe president of a small manufacturing firm is concerned about the continual increase in manufacturing costs over the past several years. The following figures provide a time series of the cost per unit for the firms leading product over the past eight years: a. Construct a time series plot. What type of pattern exists in the data? b. Use simple linear regression analysis to find the parameters for the line that minimizes MSE for this time series. c. What is the average cost increase that the firm has been realizing per year? d. Compute an estimate of the cost/unit for next year.arrow_forward
- 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?arrow_forwardFriendly Bank is attempting to determine the cost behavior of its small business lending operations. One of the major activities is the application activity. Two possible activity drivers have been mentioned: application hours (number of hours to complete the application) and number of applications. The bank controller has accumulated the following data for the setup activity: Required: 1. Estimate a regression equation with application hours as the activity driver and the only independent variable. If the bank forecasts 2,600 application hours for the next month, what will be the budgeted application cost? 2. Estimate a regression equation with number of applications as the activity driver and the only independent variable. If the bank forecasts 80 applications for the next month, what will be the budgeted application cost? 3. Which of the two regression equations do you think does a better job of predicting application costs? Explain. 4. Run a multiple regression to determine the cost equation using both activity drivers. What are the budgeted application costs for 2,600 application hours and 80 applications?arrow_forwardUsing Regression to Calculate Fixed Cost, Calculate the Variable Rate, Construct a Cost Formula, and Determine Budgeted Cost Refer to the information for Speedy Petes on the previous page. Coefficients shown by a regression program for Speedy Petes data are: Required: Use the results of regression to make the following calculations: 1. Calculate the fixed cost of deliveries and the variable rate per delivery. 2. Construct the cost formula for total delivery cost. 3. Calculate the budgeted cost for next month, assuming that 3,000 deliveries are budgeted. (Note: Round answers to the nearest dollar.) Use the following information for Brief Exercises 3-26 through 3-29: Speedy Petes is a small start-up company that delivers high-end coffee drinks to large metropolitan office buildings via a cutting-edge motorized coffee cart to compete with other premium coffee shops. Data for the past 8 months were collected as follows:arrow_forward
- The regional transit authority for a major metropolitan area wants to determine whether there is a relationship between the age of a bus and the annual maintenance cost. A sample of 10 buses resulted in the following data: Develop a scatter chart for these data. What does the scatter chart indicate about the relationship between age of a bus and the annual maintenance cost? Use the data to develop an estimated regression equation that could be used to predict the annual maintenance cost given the age of the bus. What is the estimated regression model? Test whether each of the regression parameters β0 and β1 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? How much of the variation in the sample values of annual maintenance cost does the model you estimated in part (b) explain? What do you predict the annual maintenance cost to be for a 3.5-year-old bus?arrow_forwardUsing Regression to Calculate Fixed Cost, Calculate the Variable Rate, Construct a Cost Formula, and Determine Budgeted Cost Refer to the information for Pizza Vesuvio on the previous page. Coefficients shown by a regression program for Pizza Vesuvios data are: Required: Use the results of regression to make the following calculations: 1. Calculate the fixed cost of labor and the variable rate per employee hour. 2. Construct the cost formula for total labor cost. 3. Calculate the budgeted cost for next month, assuming that 675 employee hours are budgeted. (Note: Round answers to the nearest dollar.) Use the following information for Brief Exercises 3-17 through 3-20: Pizza Vesuvio makes specialty pizzas. Data for the past 8 months were collected:arrow_forwardRefer to Cornerstone Exercise 3.4 for data on Dohini Manufacturing Companys purchasing cost and number of purchase orders. The controller for Dohini Manufacturing ran regression on the data, and the coefficients shown by the regression program are: Required: 1. Construct the cost formula for the purchasing activity showing the fixed cost and the variable rate. 2. If Dohini Manufacturing Company estimates that next month will have 430 purchase orders, what is the total estimated purchasing cost for that month? (Round your answer to the nearest dollar.) 3. What if Dohini Manufacturing wants to estimate purchasing cost for the coming year and expects 5,340 purchase orders? What will estimated total purchasing cost be? (Round your answer to the nearest dollar.) What is the total fixed purchasing cost? Why doesnt it equal the fixed cost calculated in Requirement 1?arrow_forward
- Hudson Corporation is considering three options for managing its data warehouse: continuing with its own staff, hiring an outside vendor to do the managing, or using a combination of its own staff and an outside vendor. The cost of the operation depends on future demand. The annual cost of each option (in thousands of dollars) depends on demand as follows: If the demand probabilities are 0.2, 0.5, and 0.3, which decision alternative will minimize the expected cost of the data warehouse? What is the expected annual cost associated with that recommendation? Construct a risk profile for the optimal decision in part (a). What is the probability of the cost exceeding $700,000?arrow_forwardHaysbert Company provides management services for apartments and rental units. In general, Haysbert packages its services into two groups: basic and complete. The basic package includes advertising vacant units, showing potential renters through them, and collecting monthly rent and remitting it to the owner. The complete package adds maintenance of units and bookkeeping to the basic package. Packages are priced on a per-rental unit basis. Actual results from last year are as follows: Haysbert had budgeted the following amounts: Required: 1. Calculate the contribution margin variance. 2. Calculate the contribution margin volume variance. 3. Calculate the sales mix variance.arrow_forwardRoss Company implemented a quality improvement program and tracked the following for the five years: By cost category as a percentage of sales for the same period of time: Required: 1. Prepare a bar graph that reveals the trend in quality cost as a percentage of sales (time on the horizontal axis and percentages on the vertical). Comment on the message of the graph. 2. Prepare a bar graph for each cost category as a percentage of sales. What does this graph tell you? 3. What if management would like to have the trend in relative distribution of quality costs? Express this as a bar graph and comment on its significance.arrow_forward
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