Textbook Problem

Standards for nonmanufacturing expenses
The Radiology Department provides imaging services for Northeast Washington Medical Center. One important activity in the Radiology Department is transcribing digitally recorded analyses of images into a written report. The manager of the Radiology Department determined that the average transcriptionist could type 800 lines of a report in an hour. The plan for the first week in July called for 64,000 typed lines to be written. The Radiology Department has two transcriptionists. Each transcriptionist is hired from an employment firm (hat requires temporary employees to be hired for a minimum of a 40-hour week. Transcriptionists are paid $18.00 per hour. The manager offered a bonus if the department could type more than 70,000 lines for the week, without overtime. Due to high service demands, the transcriptionists typed more lines in the first week of July than planned. The actual amount of lines typed in (he first week of July was 70,400 lines, without overtime. As a result, the bonus caused the average transcriptionist hourly rate to increase to $20.00 per hour during the first week in July.

Instructions

Which decision is better, paying the bonus or hiring another transcriptionist?