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Cost allocation and decision making. Reidland Manufacturing has four divisions: Acme, Dune, Stark, and Brothers. Corporate headquarters is in Minnesota. Reidland corporate headquarters incurs costs of $16,800,000 per period, which is an indirect cost of the divisions. Corporate headquarters currently allocates this cost to the divisions based on the revenues of each division. The CEO has asked each division manager to suggest an allocation base for the indirect headquarters costs from among revenues, segment margin, direct costs, and number of employees. The following is relevant information about each division:
- 1. Allocate the indirect headquarters costs of Reidland Manufacturing to each of the four divisions using revenues, direct costs, segment margin, and number of employees as the allocation bases. Calculate operating margins for each division after allocating headquarters costs.
- 2. Flair ranks the individual customers in the Ma and Pa single-store distribution market on the basis of monthly operating income. The cumulative operating income of the top 20% of customers is $58,120. Best Drugs reports operating losses of $23,670 for the bottom 40% of its customers. Make four recommendations that you think Best Drugs should consider in light of this new customer-profitability information.
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- Young Company is beginning operations and is considering three alternatives to allocate manufacturing overhead to individual units produced. Young can use a plantwide rate, departmental rates, or activity-based costing. Young will produce many types of products in its single plant, and not all products will be processed through all departments. In which one of the following independent situations would reported net income for the first year be the same regardless of which overhead allocation method had been selected? a. All production costs approach those costs that were budgeted. b. The sales mix does not vary from the mix that was budgeted. c. All manufacturing overhead is a fixed cost. d. All ending inventory balances are zero.arrow_forwardColumbia Products Inc. has two divisions, Salem and Seaside. For the month ended March 31, Salem had sales and variable costs of 500,000 and 225,000, respectively, and Seaside had sales and variable costs of 800,000 and 475,000, respectively. Salem had direct fixed production and administrative expenses of 60,000 and 35,000, respectively, and Seaside had direct fixed production and administrative expenses of 80,000 and 45,000, respectively. Fixed costs that were common to both divisions and couldnt be allocated to the divisions in any meaningful way were selling, 33,000, and administration, 27,000. Prepare a segmented income statement by division for March.arrow_forwardA manufacturing company has two service and two production departments. Human Resources and Machine Repair are the service departments. The production departments are Grinding and Polishing. The following data have been estimated for next years operations: The direct charges identified with each of the departments are as follows: The human resources department services all departments of the company, and its costs are allocated using the numbers of employees within each department, while machine repair costs are allocable to Grinding and Polishing on the basis of machine hours. 1. Distribute the service department costs, using the direct method. 2. Distribute the service department costs, using the sequential distribution method, with the department servicing the greatest number of other departments distributed first.arrow_forward
- Refer to the data in Exercise 7.18. When the capacity of the HR Department was originally established, the normal usage expected for each department was 20,000 direct labor hours. This usage is also the amount of activity planned for the two departments in Year 1 and Year 2. Required: 1. Allocate the costs of the HR Department using the direct method and assuming that the purpose is product costing. 2. Allocate the costs of the HR Department using the direct method and assuming that the purpose is to evaluate performance.arrow_forwardRocky Mountain Airlines Inc. has two divisions organized as profit centers, the Passenger Division and the Cargo Division. The following divisional income statements were prepared: The support department allocation rates for the support department costs were based on revenues. Because the revenues of the two divisions were the same, the support department allocations to each division were also the same. The following additional information is available: a.Does the operating income (loss) for the two divisions accurately measure performance? Explain. b.Correct the divisional income statements, using appropriate support department cost drivers.arrow_forwardTwo departments within Cougar Gear Inc. are Production and Sales. Each department has a unique scorecard, as follows: The Production Department scorecard focuses on the learning and growth and internal processes perspectives. The Sales Department scorecard focuses on the learning and growth and customer perspectives. Both scorecards have the learning and growth performance metrics of median training hours per employee and average employee tenure. The Production scorecard has the unique metrics of production time per unit and number of production shutdowns. The Sales scorecard has the unique metrics of percentage of customers who shop again and online customer satisfaction rating. The performance targets for each metric are shown in the tan boxes just under the performance metrics. The actual achieved metrics are shown in the red boxes just below the tan boxes. When evaluating both departments, Cougar Gears management looks at the median training hours per employee and average employee tenure metrics and subsequently decides to give the Sales Department a large bonus while giving the Production Department a minimal bonus. a. Determine and define the type of cognitive bias Cougar Gears management has exhibited in this instance. b. Determine which department would have received the larger bonus had the companys management not been biased in the evaluation. c. Discuss one advantage and one disadvantage of using unique balanced scorecards for different departments or divisions of a company.arrow_forward
- Product costing and decision analysis for a service company Blue Star Airline provides passenger airline service, using small jets. The airline connects four major cities: Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and San Francisco. The company expects to fly 170,000 miles during a month. The following costs are budgeted for a month: Blue Star management wishes to assign these costs to individual flights in order to gauge the profitability of its service offerings. The following activity bases were identified with the budgeted costs: The size of the companys ground operation in each city is determined by the size of the workforce. The following monthly data are available from corporate records for each terminal operation: Three recent representative flights have been selected for the profitability study. Their characteristics are as follows: Instructions Determine the fuel, crew, and depreciation cost per mile flown. Determine the cost per arrival or departure by terminal city. Use the information in (1) and (2) to construct a profitability report for the three flights. Each flight has a single arrival and departure to its origin and destination city pairs.arrow_forwardA manufacturing company has two service and two production departments. Building Maintenance and Factory Office are the service departments. The production departments are Assembly and Machining. The following data have been estimated for next years operations: The direct charges identified with each of the departments are as follows: The building maintenance department services all departments of the company, and its costs are allocated using floor space occupied, while factory office costs are allocable to Assembly and Machining on the basis of direct labor hours. 1. Distribute the service department costs, using the direct method. 2. Distribute the service department costs, using the sequential distribution method, with the department servicing the greatest number of other departments distributed first.arrow_forwardActivity-based product costing Mello Manufacturing Company is a diversified manufacturer that manufactures three products (Alpha, Beta, and Omega) in a continuous production process. Senior management has asked the controller to conduct an activity-based costing study. The controller identified the amount of factory overhead required by the critical activities of the organization as follows: The activity bases identified for each activity are as follows: The activity-base usage quantities and units produced for the three products were determined from corporate records and are as follows: Each product requires 40 minutes per unit of machine time. Instructions Determine the activity rate for each activity. Determine the total and per-unit activity cost for all three products. Round to nearest cent. Why arent the activity unit costs equal across all three products since they require the same machine time per unit?arrow_forward
- Grate Care Company specializes in producing products for personal grooming. The company operates six divisions, including the Hair Products Division. Each division is treated as an investment center. Managers are evaluated and rewarded on the basis of ROI performance. Only those managers who produce the best ROIs are selected to receive bonuses and to fill higher-level managerial positions. Fred Olsen, manager of the Hair Products Division, has always been one of the top performers. For the past two years, Freds division has produced the largest ROI; last year, the division earned an operating income of 2.56 million and employed average operating assets valued at 16 million. Fred is pleased with his divisions performance and has been told that if the division does well this year, he will be in line for a headquarters position. For the coming year, Freds division has been promised new capital totaling 1.5 million. Any of the capital not invested by the division will be invested to earn the companys required rate of return (9 percent). After some careful investigation, the marketing and engineering staff recommended that the division invest in equipment that could be used to produce a crimping and waving iron, a product currently not produced by the division. The cost of the equipment was estimated at 1.2 million. The divisions marketing manager estimated operating earnings from the new line to be 156,000 per year. After receiving the proposal and reviewing the potential effects, Fred turned it down. He then wrote a memo to corporate headquarters, indicating that his division would not be able to employ the capital in any new projects within the next eight to 10 months. He did note, however, that he was confident that his marketing and engineering staff would have a project ready by the end of the year. At that time, he would like to have access to the capital. Required: 1. Explain why Fred Olsen turned down the proposal to add the capability of producing a crimping and waving iron. Provide computations to support your reasoning. 2. Compute the effect that the new product line would have on the profitability of the firm as a whole. Should the division have produced the crimping and waving iron? 3. Suppose that the firm used residual income as a measure of divisional performance. Do you think Freds decision might have been different? Why? 4. Explain why a firm like Grate Care might decide to use both residual income and return on investment as measures of performance. 5. Did Fred display ethical behavior when he turned down the investment? In discussing this issue, consider why he refused to allow the investment.arrow_forwardEvans, Inc., has a unit-based costing system. Evanss Miami plant produces 10 different electronic products. The demand for each product is about the same. Although they differ in complexity, each product uses about the same labor time and materials. The plant has used direct labor hours for years to assign overhead to products. To help design engineers understand the assumed cost relationships, the Cost Accounting Department developed the following cost equation. (The equation describes the relationship between total manufacturing costs and direct labor hours; the equation is supported by a coefficient of determination of 60 percent.) Y=5,000,000+30X,whereX=directlaborhours The variable rate of 30 is broken down as follows: Because of competitive pressures, product engineering was given the charge to redesign products to reduce the total cost of manufacturing. Using the above cost relationships, product engineering adopted the strategy of redesigning to reduce direct labor content. As each design was completed, an engineering change order was cut, triggering a series of events such as design approval, vendor selection, bill of materials update, redrawing of schematic, test runs, changes in setup procedures, development of new inspection procedures, and so on. After one year of design changes, the normal volume of direct labor was reduced from 250,000 hours to 200,000 hours, with the same number of products being produced. Although each product differs in its labor content, the redesign efforts reduced the labor content for all products. On average, the labor content per unit of product dropped from 1.25 hours per unit to one hour per unit. Fixed overhead, however, increased from 5,000,000 to 6,600,000 per year. Suppose that a consultant was hired to explain the increase in fixed overhead costs. The consultants study revealed that the 30 per hour rate captured the unit-level variable costs; however, the cost behavior of other activities was quite different. For example, setting up equipment is a step-fixed cost, where each step is 2,000 setup hours, costing 90,000. The study also revealed that the cost of receiving goods is a function of the number of different components. This activity has a variable cost of 2,000 per component type and a fixed cost that follows a step-cost pattern. The step is defined by 20 components with a cost of 50,000 per step. Assume also that the consultant indicated that the design adopted by the engineers increased the demand for setups from 20,000 setup hours to 40,000 setup hours and the number of different components from 100 to 250. The demand for other non-unit-level activities remained unchanged. The consultant also recommended that management take a look at a rejected design for its products. This rejected design increased direct labor content from 250,000 hours to 260,000 hours, decreased the demand for setups from 20,000 hours to 10,000 hours, and decreased the demand for purchasing from 100 component types to 75 component types, while the demand for all other activities remained unchanged. Required: 1. Using normal volume, compute the manufacturing cost per labor hour before the year of design changes. What is the cost per unit of an average product? 2. Using normal volume after the one year of design changes, compute the manufacturing cost per hour. What is the cost per unit of an average product? 3. Before considering the consultants study, what do you think is the most likely explanation for the failure of the design changes to reduce manufacturing costs? Now use the information from the consultants study to explain the increase in the average cost per unit of product. What changes would you suggest to improve Evanss efforts to reduce costs? 4. Explain why the consultant recommended a second look at a rejected design. Provide computational support. What does this tell you about the strategic importance of cost management?arrow_forward
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