Concept explainers
Jolene Askew, manager of Feagan Company, has committed her company to a strategically sound cost reduction program. Emphasizing life-cycle cost management is a major part of this effort. Jolene is convinced that production costs can be reduced by paying more attention to the relationships between design and manufacturing. Design engineers need to know what causes
where
Upon seeing the cost formula, Jolene quickly calculated the projected gross profit to be $50,000. This produced a gross profit of $2 per unit, well below the targeted gross profit of $4 per unit. Jolene then sent a memo to the Engineering Department, instructing them to search for a new design that would lower the costs of production by at least $50,000 so that the target profit could be met.
Within two days, the Engineering Department proposed a new design that would reduce unit-variable cost from $10 per machine hour to $8 per machine hour (Design Z). The chief engineer, upon reviewing the design, questioned the validity of the controller’s cost formula. He suggested a more careful assessment of the proposed design’s effect on activities other than machining. Based on this suggestion, the following revised cost formula was developed. This cost formula reflected the cost relationships of the most recent design (Design Z).
where
Based on scheduling and inventory considerations, the product would be produced in batches of 1,000; thus, 25 batches would be needed over the product’s life cycle. Furthermore, based on past experience, the product would likely generate about 20 engineering change orders.
This new insight into the linkage of the product with its underlying activities led to a different design (Design W). This second design also lowered the unit-level cost by $2 per unit but decreased the number of design support requirements from 20 orders to 10 orders. Attention was also given to the setup activity, and the design engineer assigned to the product created a design that reduced setup time and lowered variable setup costs from $5,000 to $3,000 per setup. Furthermore, Design W also creates excess activity capacity for the setup activity, and resource spending for setup activity capacity can be decreased by $40,000, reducing the fixed cost component in the equation by this amount.
Design W was recommended and accepted. As prototypes of the design were tested, an additional benefit emerged. Based on test results, the post-purchase costs dropped from an estimated $0.70 per unit sold to $0.40 per unit sold. Using this information, the Marketing Department revised the projected market share upward from 50 percent to 60 percent (with no price decrease).
Required:
- 1. Calculate the expected gross profit per unit for Design Z using the controller’s original cost formula. According to this outcome, does Design Z reach the targeted unit profit? Repeat, using the engineer’s revised cost formula. Explain why Design Z failed to meet the targeted profit. What does this say about the use of unit-based costing for life-cycle cost management?
- 2. Calculate the expected profit per unit using Design W. Comment on the value of activity information for life-cycle cost management.
- 3. The benefit of the post-purchase cost reduction of Design W was discovered in testing. What direct benefit did it create for Feagan Company (in dollars)? Reducing post-purchase costs was not a specific design objective. Should it have been? Are there any other design objectives that should have been considered?
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Cornerstones of Cost Management (Cornerstones Series)
- Kagle design engineers are in the process of developing a new green product, one that will significantly reduce impact on the environment and yet still provide the desired customer functionality. Currently, two designs are being considered. The manager of Kagle has told the engineers that the cost for the new product cannot exceed 550 per unit (target cost). In the past, the Cost Accounting Department has given estimated costs using a unit-based system. At the request of the Engineering Department, Cost Accounting is providing both unit-and activity-based accounting information (made possible by a recent pilot study producing the activity-based data). Unit-based system: Variable conversion activity rate: 100 per direct labor hour Material usage rate: 20 per part ABC system: Labor usage: 15 per direct labor hour Material usage (direct materials): 20 per part Machining: 75 per machine hour Purchasing activity: 150 per purchase order Setup activity: 3,000 per setup hour Warranty activity: 500 per returned unit (usually requires extensive rework) Customer repair cost: 25 per repair hour (average) Required: 1. Select the lower-cost design using unit-based costing. Are logistical and post-purchase activities considered in this analysis? 2. Select the lower-cost design using ABC analysis. Explain why the analysis differs from the unit-based analysis. 3. What if the post-purchase cost was an environmental contaminant and amounted to 10 per unit for Design A and 40 per unit for Design B? Assume that the environmental cost is borne by society. Now which is the better design?arrow_forwardGumbrecht Company has the following departmental manufacturing layout for one of its plants: A consulting firm has recommended a value stream with the following manufacturing cell: Required: 1. Calculate the total time it takes to produce a batch of 20 units using the traditional departmental manufacturing layout. 2. Using cellular manufacturing, how much time is saved producing the same batch of 20 units? Assuming the cell operates continuously, what is the production rate? Which process controls this production rate? 3. Assume the processing time of Casting is reduced to 9 minutes, while the times of the other processes stay the same. What is the production rate now, and how long will it take to produce a batch of 20 units if the cell is in a continuous production mode?arrow_forwardAnderson Company has the following departmental manufacturing structure for one of its products: After some study, the production manager of Anderson recommended the following revised cellular manufacturing approach: Required: 1. Calculate the total time it takes to produce a batch of 20 units using Andersons traditional departmental structure. 2. Using cellular manufacturing, how much time is saved producing the same batch of 20 units? Assuming the cell operates continuously, what is the production rate? Which process controls this production rate? 3. What if the processing times of molding, welding, and assembly are all reduced to six minutes each? What is the production rate now, and how long will it take to produce a batch of 20 units?arrow_forward
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Because of imperfections in the strawberries and spoilage, one quart of strawberries is discarded for every four quarts of acceptable berries. Three minutes is the standard direct labor time required for sorting strawberries in order to obtain one quart of strawberries. The acceptable strawberries are then processed with the other ingredients: processing requires 12 minutes of direct labor time per batch. After processing, the jam is packaged in quart containers. Doug has gathered the following information from Joe Adams, Quincys cost accountant, relative to processing the strawberry jam. a. Quincy purchases strawberries at a cost of 0.80 per quart. All other ingredients cost a total of 0.45 per gallon. b. Direct labor is paid at the rate of 9.00 per hour. c. The total cost of direct material and direct labor required to package the jam is 0.38 per quart. Joe has a friend who owns a strawberry farm that has been losing money in recent years. 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For the past six weeks, he and the project committee members have been identifying and defining activities, associating workers with activities, and assessing the time and resources consumed by individual activities. Now, he and the project committee are focusing on three additional implementation issues: (1) identifying activity drivers, (2) assessing value content, and (3) identifying cost drivers (root causes). Joseph has assigned a committee member the responsibilities of assessing the value content of five activities, choosing a suitable activity driver for each activity, and identifying the possible root causes of the activities. Following are the five activities with possible activity drivers: The committee member ran a regression analysis for each potential activity driver, using the method of least squares to estimate the variable and fixed cost components. In all five cases, costs were highly correlated with the potential drivers. Thus, all drivers appeared to be good candidates for assigning costs to products. The company plans to reward production managers for reducing product costs. Required: 1. What is the difference between an activity driver and a cost driver? In answering the question, describe the purpose of each type of driver. 2. For each activity, assess the value content and classify each activity as value-added or non-value-added (justify the classification). Identify some possible root causes of each activity, and describe how this knowledge can be used to improve activity performance. For purposes of discussion, assume that the value-added activities are not performed with perfect efficiency. 3. Describe the behavior that each activity driver will encourage, and evaluate the suitability of that behavior for the companys objective of becoming more competitive.arrow_forwardRandy Harris, controller, has been given the charge to implement an advanced cost management system. As part of this process, he needs to identify activity drivers for the activities of the firm. During the past four months, Randy has spent considerable effort identifying activities, their associated costs, and possible drivers for the activities costs. Initially, Randy made his selections based on his own judgment using his experience and input from employees who perform the activities. Later, he used regression analysis to confirm his judgment. Randy prefers to use one driver per activity, provided that an R2 of at least 80 percent can be produced. Otherwise, multiple drivers will be used, based on evidence provided by multiple regression analysis. For example, the activity of inspecting finished goods produced an R2 of less than 80 percent for any single activity driver. Randy believes, however, that a satisfactory cost formula can be developed using two activity drivers: the number of batches and the number of inspection hours. Data collected for a 14-month period are as follows: Required: 1. Calculate the cost formula for inspection costs using the two drivers, inspection hours and number of batches. Are both activity drivers useful? What does the R2 indicate about the formula? 2. Using the formula developed in Requirement 1, calculate the inspection cost when 300 inspection hours are used and 30 batches are produced. Prepare a 90 percent confidence interval for this prediction.arrow_forward
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