Concept explainers
Midwest Home Furnishings Corporation (MHFC) manufactures a variety of house wares for the consumer market in the Midwest. The company’s three major product lines are cooking utensils, tableware, and flatware. MHFC implemented activity-based costing four years ago and now has a well-developed ABC system in place for determining product costs. Only recently, however, has the ABC system been systematically used for the purposes of activity-based management. As a pilot project, MHFC’s controller asked the ABC project team to do a detailed activity analysis of the purchasing activity. The following specific activities were identified.
- 1. Receipt of parts specifications from the Design Engineering Department.
- 2. Follow-up with design engineers to answer any questions.
- 3. Vendor (supplier) identification.
- 4. Vendor consultations (by phone or in person).
- 5. Price negotiation.
- 6. Vendor selection.
- 7. Ordering (by phone or mail).
- 8. Order follow-up.
- 9. Expediting (attempting to speed up delivery).
- 10. Order receiving.
- 11. Inspection of parts.
- 12. Return of parts not meeting specifications.
- 13. Consultation with design engineers and production personnel if parts do not satisfy intended purpose.
- 14. Further consultation and/or negotiation with vendor if necessary.
- 15. Ship parts back to vendor if necessary.
- 16. If satisfactory, move parts to storage.
Required:
- 1. Draw a diagram to depict MHFC’s two-dimensional activity-based costing efforts. The diagram should include the following:
- a. The cost assignment role of ABC, with the cost pools, activities, and product lines represented.
- b. The process view of ABC, with the purchasing activities displayed. Also indicated here will be the linkages among the activities. (To save space, indicate the activities by their numbers.)
- c. The activity evaluation phase of two-dimensional ABC.
- 2. Identify the triggers for each of the following activities in MHFC’s purchasing activity analysis:
Follow-up with design engineers (activity 2)
Expediting (activity 9)
Inspection of parts (activity 11)
Return of parts (activity 12)
Consultation with design engineers and production personnel (activity 13)
- 3. For each of the activities listed in requirement (2), identify the possible root causes.
- 4. Choose four activities in MHFC’s purchasing function, and suggest a performance measure for each of these activities.
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Managerial Accounting: Creating Value in a Dynamic Business Environment
- 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_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_forwardPaul Golding and his wife, Nancy, established Crunchy Chips in 1938. Over the past 60 years, the company has established distribution channels in 11 western states, with production facilities in Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. In 1980, Pauls son, Edward, took control of the business. By 2017, it was clear that the companys plants needed to gain better control over production costs to stay competitive. Edward hired a consultant to install a standard costing system. To help the consultant establish the necessary standards, Edward sent her the following memo: The manufacturing process for potato chips begins when the potatoes are placed into a large vat in which they are automatically washed. After washing, the potatoes flow directly to an automatic peeler. The peeled potatoes then pass by inspectors, who manually cut out deep eyes or other blemishes. After inspection, the potatoes are automatically sliced and dropped into the cooking oil. The frying process is closely monitored by an employee. After the chips are cooked, they pass under a salting device and then pass by more inspectors, who sort out the unacceptable finished chips (those that are discolored or too small). The chips then continue on the conveyor belt to a bagging machine that bags them in 1-pound bags. After bagging, the bags are placed in a box and shipped. The box holds 15 bags. The raw potato pieces (eyes and blemishes), peelings, and rejected finished chips are sold to animal feed producers for 0.16 per pound. The company uses this revenue to reduce the cost of potatoes. We would like this reflected in the price standard relating to potatoes. Crunchy Chips purchases high-quality potatoes at a cost of 0.245 per pound. Each potato averages 4.25 ounces. Under efficient operating conditions, it takes four potatoes to produce one 16-ounce bag of plain chips. Although we label bags as containing 16 ounces, we actually place 16.3 ounces in each bag. We plan to continue this policy to ensure customer satisfaction. In addition to potatoes, other raw materials are the cooking oil, salt, bags, and boxes. Cooking oil costs 0.04 per ounce, and we use 3.3 ounces of oil per bag of chips. The cost of salt is so small that we add it to overhead. Bags cost 0.11 each and boxes 0.52 each. Our plant produces 8.8 million bags of chips per year. A recent engineering study revealed that we would need the following direct labor hours to produce this quantity if our plant operates at peak efficiency: Im not sure that we can achieve the level of efficiency advocated by the study. In my opinion, the plant is operating efficiently for the level of output indicated if the hours allowed are about 10% higher. The hourly labor rates agreed upon with the union are: Overhead is applied on the basis of direct labor dollars. We have found that variable overhead averages about 116% of our direct labor cost. Our fixed overhead is budgeted at 1,135,216 for the coming year. Required: 1. Discuss the benefits of a standard costing system for Crunchy Chips. 2. Discuss the presidents concern about using the result of the engineering study to set the labor standards. What standard would you recommend? 3. Form a group with two or three other students. Develop a standard cost sheet for Crunchy Chips plain potato chips. Round all computations to four decimal places. 4. Suppose that the level of production was 8.8 million bags of potato chips for the year as planned. If 9.5 million pounds of potatoes were used, compute the materials usage variance for potatoes.arrow_forward
- Anderson 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_forwardBienestar Inc., has the following departmental structure for producing a well-known multivitamin: A consultant designed the following cellular manufacturing structure for the same product: The times above the processes represent the time required to process one unit of product. Required: 1. Calculate the time required to produce a batch of 15 bottles using a batch-processing departmental structure. 2. Calculate the time to process 15 units using cellular manufacturing. 3. How much manufacturing time will the cellular manufacturing structure save for a batch of 15 units?arrow_forwardThe Chocolate Baker specializes in chocolate baked goods. The firm has long assessed the profitability of a product line by comparing revenues to the cost of goods sold. However, Barry White, the firms new accountant, wants to use an activity-based costing system that takes into consideration the cost of the delivery person. Following are activity and cost information relating to two of Chocolate Bakers major products: Using activity-based costing, which of the following statements is correct? a. The muffins are 2,000 more profitable. b. The cheesecakes are 75 more profitable. c. The muffins are 1,925 more profitable. d. The muffins have a higher profitability as a percentage of sales and, therefore, are more advantageous.arrow_forward
- Big Mikes, a large hardware store, has gathered data on its overhead activities and associated costs for the past 10 months. Nizam Sanjay, a member of the controllers department, believes that overhead activities and costs should be classified into groups that have the same driver. He has decided that unloading incoming goods, counting goods, and inspecting goods can be grouped together as a more general receiving activity, since these three activities are all driven by the number of receiving orders. The 10 months of data shown below have been gathered for the receiving activity. Required: 1. Prepare a scattergraph, plotting the receiving costs against the number of purchase orders. Use the vertical axis for costs and the horizontal axis for orders. 2. Select two points that make the best fit, and compute a cost formula for receiving costs. 3. Using the high-low method, prepare a cost formula for the receiving activity. 4. Using the method of least squares, prepare a cost formula for the receiving activity. What is the coefficient of determination?arrow_forwardMott Company recently implemented a JIT manufacturing system. After one year of operation, Heidi Burrows, president of the company, wanted to compare product cost under the JIT system with product cost under the old system. Motts two products are weed eaters and lawn edgers. The unit prime costs under the old system are as follows: Under the old manufacturing system, the company operated three service centers and two production departments. Overhead was applied using departmental overhead rates. The direct overhead costs associated with each department for the year preceding the installation of JIT are as follows: Under the old system, the overhead costs of the service departments were allocated directly to the producing departments and then to the products passing through them. (Both products passed through each producing department.) The overhead rate for the Machining Department was based on machine hours, and the overhead rate for assembly was based on direct labor hours. During the last year of operations for the old system, the Machining Department used 80,000 machine hours, and the Assembly Department used 20,000 direct labor hours. Each weed eater required 1.0 machine hour in Machining and 0.25 direct labor hour in Assembly. Each lawn edger required 2.0 machine hours in Machining and 0.5 hour in Assembly. Bases for allocation of the service costs are as follows: Upon implementing JIT, a manufacturing cell for each product was created to replace the departmental structure. Each cell occupied 40,000 square feet. Maintenance and materials handling were both decentralized to the cell level. Essentially, cell workers were trained to operate the machines in each cell, assemble the components, maintain the machines, and move the partially completed units from one point to the next within the cell. During the first year of the JIT system, the company produced and sold 20,000 weed eaters and 30,000 lawn edgers. This output was identical to that for the last year of operations under the old system. The following costs have been assigned to the manufacturing cells: Required: 1. Compute the unit cost for each product under the old manufacturing system. 2. Compute the unit cost for each product under the JIT system. 3. Which of the unit costs is more accurate? Explain. Include in your explanation a discussion of how the computational approaches differ. 4. Calculate the decrease in overhead costs under JIT, and provide some possible reasons that explain the decrease.arrow_forwardKarlAuto Corporation manufactures automobiles, vans, and trucks. Among the various KarlAuto plants around the United States is the Bloomington plant, where vinyl covers and upholstery fabric are sewn. These are used to cover interior seating and other surfaces of KarlAuto products. Pam Teegin is the plant manager for the Bloomington cover plantthe first KarlAuto plant in the region. As other area plants were opened, Teegin, in recognition of her management ability, was given the responsibility to manage them. Teegin functions as a regional manager, although the budget for her and her staff is charged to the Bloomington plant. Teegin has just received a report indicating that KarlAuto could purchase the entire annual output of the Bloomington cover plant from outside suppliers for 32 million. Teegin was astonished at the low outside price, because the budget for the Bloomington plants operating costs was set at 56.45 million. Teegin believes that the Bloomington plant will have to close down operations in order to realize the 24.45 million in annual cost savings. The budget (in thousands) for the Bloomington plants operating costs for the coming year follows: Additional facts regarding the plants operations are as follows: Due to the Bloomington plants commitment to use high-quality fabrics in all of its products, the Purchasing Department was instructed to place blanket orders with major suppliers to ensure the receipt of sufficient materials for the coming year. If these orders are canceled as a consequence of the plant closing, termination charges would amount to 18 percent of the cost of direct materials. Approximately 600 plant employees will lose their jobs if the plant is closed. This includes all direct laborers and supervisors as well as the plumbers, electricians, and other skilled workers classified as indirect plant workers. Some would be able to find new jobs, but many others would have difficulty. All employees would have difficulty matching the Bloomington plants base pay of 29.40 per hour, the highest in the area. A clause in the Bloomington plants contract with the union may help some employees; the company must provide employment assistance to its former employees for 12 months after a plant closing. The estimated cost to administer this service would be 1 million for the year. Some employees would probably elect early retirement because the company has an excellent pension plan. In fact, 4.6 million of next years pension expense would continue whether or not the plant is open. Teegin and her staff would not be affected by the closing of the Bloomington plant. They would still be responsible for administering three other area plants. Equipment depreciation for the plant is considered to be a variable cost and the units-of-production method is used to depreciate equipment; the Bloomington plant is the only KarlAuto plant to use this depreciation method. However, it uses the customary straight-line method to depreciate its building. Required: 1. Prepare a quantitative analysis to help in deciding whether or not to close the Bloomington plant. Explain how you treated the nonrecurring relevant costs. 2. Consider the analysis in Requirement 1, and add to it the qualitative factors that you believe are important to the decision. What is your decision? Would you close the plant? Explain. (CMA adapted)arrow_forward
- Gumbrecht 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_forwardJolene 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 manufacturing costs. She instructed her controller to develop a manufacturing cost formula for a newly proposed product. Marketing had already projected sales of 25,000 units for the new product. (The life cycle was estimated to be 18 months. The company expected to have 50 percent of the market and priced its product to achieve this goal.) The projected selling price was 20 per unit. The following cost formula was developed: Y=200,000+10X1 where X1=Machinehours(Theproductisexpectedtouseonemachinehourforeveryunitproduced.) 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 controllers cost formula. He suggested a more careful assessment of the proposed designs 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). Y=140,000+8X1+5,000X2+2,000X3 where X1=MachinehoursX2=NumberofbatchesX3=Numberofengineeringchangeorders Based on scheduling and inventory considerations, the product would be produced in batches of 1,000; thus, 25 batches would be needed over the products 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 controllers original cost formula. According to this outcome, does Design Z reach the targeted unit profit? Repeat, using the engineers 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?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. 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