MiniTek manufactures private-label small electronic products, such as alarm clocks, calculators, kitchen timers, stopwatches, and automatic pencil sharpeners. Some of the products are sold as sets, and others are sold individually. Products are studied as to their sales potential, and then cost estimates are made. The Engineering Department develops production plans, and then production begins. The company has generally had very successful product introductions. Only two products introduced by the company have been discontinued. One of the products currently sold is a multi-alarm clock. The clock has four alarms that can be programmed to sound at various times and for varying lengths of time. The company has experienced a great deal of difficulty in making the circuit boards for the clocks. The production process has never operated smoothly. The product is unprofitable at the present time, primarily because of warranty repairs and product recalls. Two models of the clocks were recalled, for example, because they sometimes caused an electric shock when the alarms were being shut off. The Engineering Department is attempting to revise the manufacturing process, but the revision will take another 6 months at least. The clocks were very popular when they were introduced, and since they are private-label, the company has not suffered much from the recalls. Presently, the company has a very large order for several items from Kmart Stores. The order includes 5,000 of the multi-alarm clocks. When the company suggested that Kmart purchase the clocks from another manufacturer. Kmart threatened to rescind the entire order unless the clocks were included. The company has therefore investigated the possibility of having another company make the clocks for them. The clocks were bid for the Kmart order based on an estimated $6.90 cost to manufacture: Circuit board. 1 each @ $2.00 $2.00 Plastic case, 1 each @ $0.80 0.80 Alarms. 4 @ $0.15 each 0.60 Labor, 15 minutes $12/hour 3.00 Overhead , $2.00 per labor hour 0.50 MiniTek could purchase clocks to fill the Kmart order for $10 from Trans-Tech Asia, a Korean manufacturer with a very good quality record. TVans-Tech has offered to reduce the price to $7.50 after MiniTek has been a customer for 6 months, placing an order of at least 1,000 units per month. If MiniTek becomes a “preferred customer” by purchasing 15,000 units per year, the price would be reduced still further to $4.50. Omega Products, a local manufacturer, has also offered to make clocks for MiniTek. They have offered to sell 5,000 clocks for $5 each. However, Omega Products has been in business for only 6 months. They have experienced significant turnover in their labor force, and the local press has reported that the owners may face tax evasion charges soon. The owner of Omega Products is an electronic engineer, however, and the quality of the clocks is likely to be good. If MiniTek decides to purchase the clocks from either Trans-Tech or Omega, all the costs to manufacture could be avoided, except a total of $1,000 in overhead costs for machine depreciation . The machinery is fairly new, and has no alternate use. Instructions (a) What is the difference in profit under each of the alternatives if the clocks are to be sold for $14.50 each to Kmart? (b) What are the most important nonfinancial factors that MiniTek should consider when making this decision? (c) What do you think MiniTek should do in regard to the Kmart order? What should it do in regard to continuing to manufacture the multi-alarm clocks? Be prepared to defend your answer.

Maxwell Company produces a variety of kitchen appliances, including cooking ranges and dishwashers. Over the past several years, competition has intensified. In order to maintainand perhaps increaseits market share, Maxwells management decided that the overall quality of its products had to be increased. Furthermore, costs needed to be reduced so that the selling prices of its products could be reduced. After some investigation, Maxwell concluded that many of its problems could be traced to the unreliability of the parts that were purchased from outside suppliers. Many of these components failed to work as intended, causing performance problems. Over the years, the company had increased its inspection activity of the final products. If a problem could be detected internally, then it was usually possible to rework the appliance so that the desired performance was achieved. Management also had increased its warranty coverage; warranty work had been increasing over the years. David Haight, president of Maxwell Company, called a meeting with his executive committee. Lee Linsenmeyer, chief engineer; Kit Applegate, controller; and Jeannie Mitchell, purchasing manager, were all in attendance. How to improve the companys competitive position was the meetings topic. The conversation of the meeting was recorded as seen on the following page: DAVID: We need to find a way to improve the quality of our products and at the same time reduce costs. Lee, you said that you have done some research in this area. Would you share your findings? LEE: As you know, a major source of our quality problems relates to the poor quality of the parts we acquire from the outside. We have a lot of different parts, and this adds to the complexity of the problem. What I thought would be helpful would be to redesign our products so that they can use as many interchangeable parts as possible. This will cut down the number of different parts, make it easier to inspect, and cheaper to repair when it comes to warranty work. My engineering staff has already come up with some new designs that will do this for us. JEANNIE: I like this idea. It will simplify the purchasing activity significantly. With fewer parts, I can envision some significant savings for my area. Lee has shown me the designs so I know exactly what parts would be needed. I also have a suggestion. We need to embark on a supplier evaluation program. We have too many suppliers. By reducing the number of different parts, we will need fewer suppliers. And we really dont need to use all the suppliers that produce the parts demanded by the new designs. We should pick suppliers that will work with us and provide the quality of parts that we need. I have done some preliminary research and have identified five suppliers that seem willing to work with us and assure us of the quality we need. Lee may need to send some of his engineers into their plants to make sure that they can do what they are claiming. DAVID: This sounds promising. Kit, can you look over the proposals and their estimates and give us some idea if this approach will save us any money? And if so, how much can we expect to save? KIT: Actually, I am ahead of the game here. Lee and Jeannie have both been in contact with me and have provided me with some estimates on how these actions would affect different activities. I have prepared a handout that includes an activity table revealing what I think are the key activities affected. I have also assembled some tentative information about activity costs. The table gives the current demand and the expected demand after the changes are implemented. With this information, we should be able to assess the expected cost savings. Additionally, the following activity cost data are provided: Purchasing parts: Variable activity cost: 30 per part number; 20 salaried clerks, each earning a 45,000 annual salary. Each clerk is capable of processing orders associated with 100 part numbers. Inspecting parts: Twenty-five inspectors, each earning a salary of 40,000 per year. Each inspector is capable of 2,000 hours of inspection. Reworking products: Variable activity cost: 25 per unit reworked (labor and parts). Warranty: Twenty repair agents, each paid a salary of 35,000 per year. Each repair agent is capable of repairing 500 units per year. Variable activity costs: 15 per product repaired. Required: 1. Compute the total savings possible as reflected by Kits handout. Assume that resource spending is reduced where possible. 2. Explain how redesign and supplier evaluation are linked to the savings computed in Requirement 1. Discuss the importance of recognizing and exploiting internal and external linkages. 3. Identify the organizational and operational activities involved in the strategy being considered by Maxwell Company. What is the relationship between organizational and operational activities?

Posavek is a wholesale supplier of building supplies building contractors, hardware stores, and home-improvement centers in the Boston metropolitan area. Over the years, Posavek has expanded its operations to serve customers across the nation and now employs over 200 people as technical representatives, buyers, warehouse workers, and sales and office staff. Most recently, Posavek has experienced fierce competition from the large online discount stores. In addition, the company is suffering from operational inefficiencies related to its archaic information system. Posavek revenue cycle procedures are described in the following paragraphs. Revenue Cycle Posaveks sales department representatives receive orders via traditional mail, e-mail, telephone, and the occasional walk-in customer. Because Posavek is a wholesaler, the vast majority of its business is conducted on a credit basis. The process begins in the sales department, where the sales clerk enters the customers order into the centralized computer sales order system. The computer and file server are housed in Posaveks small data processing department. If the customer has done business with Posavek in the past, his or her data are already on file. If the customer is a first-time buyer, however, the clerk creates a new record in the customer account file. The system then creates a record of the transaction in the open sales order file. When the order is entered, an electronic copy of it is sent to the customers e-mail address as confirmation. A clerk in the warehouse department periodically reviews the open sales order file from a terminal and prints two copies of a stock release document for each new sale, which he uses to pick the items sold from the shelves. The warehouse clerk sends one copy of the stock release to the sales department and the second copy, along with the goods, to the shipping department. The warehouse clerk then updates the inventory subsidiary file to reflect the items and quantities shipped. Upon receipt of the stock release document, the sales clerk accesses the open sales order file from a terminal, closes the sales order, and files the stock release document in the sales department. The sales order system automatically posts these transactions to the sales, inventory control, and cost-of-goods-sold accounts in the general ledger file. Upon receipt of the goods and the stock release, the shipping department clerk prepares the goods for shipment to the customer. The clerk prepares three copies of the bill of lading. Two of these go with the goods to the carrier and the third, along with the stock release document, is filed in the shipping department. The billing department clerk reviews the closed sales orders from a terminal and prepares two copies of the sales invoice. One copy is mailed to the customer, and the other is filed in the billing department. The clerk then creates a new record in the accounts receivable subsidiary file. The sales order system automatically updates the accounts receivable control account in the general ledger file. CASH RECEIPTS PROCEDURES Mail room clerks open customer cash receipts, reviews the check and remittance advices for completeness, and prepares two copies of a remittance list. One copy is sent with the checks to the cash receipts department. The second copy of the remittance advices are sent to the billing department. When the cash receipts clerk receives the checks and remittance list, he verifies the checks received against those on the remittance list and signs the checks For Deposit Only. Once the checks are endorsed, he records the receipts in the cash receipts journal from his terminal. The clerk then fills out a deposit slip and deposits the checks in the bank. Upon receipt of the remittances, the billing department clerk records the amounts in the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger from the department terminal. The system automatically updates the AR control account in the general ledger Posavek has hired your public accounting firm to review its sales order procedures for internal control compliance and to make recommendations for changes. Required a. Create a data flow diagram of the current system. b. Create a system flowchart of the existing system. c. Analyze the physical internal control weaknesses in the system. d. (Optional) Prepare a system flowchart of a redesigned computer-based system that resolves the control weaknesses that you identified. Explain your solution.

Lansing Electronics Inc. manufactures a variety of printers, scanners, and fax machines in itstwo divisions: the PSF Division and the Components Division. The Components Division produces electronic components that can be used by the PSF Division. All the components thisdivision produces can be sold to outside customers. However, from the beginning, nearly allof its output has been used internally. The current policy requires that all internal transfers ofcomponents be transferred at full cost.Recently, Cam DeVonn, the chief executive officer of Lansing Electronics, decided to investigate the transfer pricing policy. He was concerned that the current method of pricing internaltransfers might force decisions by divisional managers that would be suboptimal for the firm. Aspart of his inquiry, he gathered some information concerning Component Y34, which is usedby the PSF Division in its production of a basic scanner, Model SC67.The PSF Division sells 40,000 units of Model SC67 each year…

ualSupport Corporation manufactures seats for automobiles, vans, trucks, and various recreational vehicles. The company has a number of plants around the world, including the Denver Cover Plant, which makes seat covers. Ted Vosilo is the plant manager of the Denver Cover Plant but also serves as the regional production manager for the company. His budget as the regional manager is charged to the Denver Cover Plant. Vosilo has just heard that QualSupport has received a bid from an outside vendor to supply the equivalent of the entire annual output of the Denver Cover Plant for $20.19 million. Vosilo was astonished at the low outside bid because the budget for the Denver Cover Plant’s operating costs for the upcoming year was set at $23.49 million. If this bid is accepted, the Denver Cover Plant will be closed down. The budget for Denver Cover’s operating costs for the coming year is presented below. Denver Cover Plant Annual Budget for Operating Costs Materials $…

QualSupport Corporation manufactures seats for automobiles, vans, trucks, and various recreational vehicles. The company has a number of plants around the world, including the Denver Cover Plant, which makes seat covers. Ted Vosilo is the plant manager of the Denver Cover Plant but also serves as the regional production manager for the company. His budget as the regional manager is charged to the Denver Cover Plant. Vosilo has just heard that QualSupport has received a bid from an outside vendor to supply the equivalent of the entire annual output of the Denver Cover Plant for $35 million. Vosilo was astonished at the low outside bid because the budget for the Denver Cover Plant’s operating costs for the upcoming year was set at $52 million. If this bid is accepted, the Denver Cover Plant will be closed down. The budget for Denver Cover’s operating costs for the coming year is presented below. Denver Cover PlantAnnual Budget for Operating Costs Materials $ 14,000,000…

Maxwell Company produces a variety of kitchen appliances, including cooking ranges and dishwashers. Over the past several years, competition has intensified. In order to maintain—and perhaps increase—its market share, Maxwell’s management decided that the overall quality of its products had to be increased. Furthermore, costs needed to be reduced so that the selling prices of its products could be reduced. After some investigation, Maxwell concluded that many of its problems could be traced to the unreliability of the parts that were purchased from outside suppliers. Many of these components failed to work as intended, causing performance problems. Over the years, the company had increased its inspection activity of the final products. If a problem could be detected internally, then it was usually possible to rework the appliance so that the desired performance was achieved. Management also had increased its warranty coverage; warranty work had been increasing over the years. DAVID…

Stark and Company is a manufacturer that sells robots predominantly in the Asian market. Times have been tough for the auto industry and Stark and Company is no different. The company is under tremendous pressure to turn a profit. Several years ago, as analysts were predicting a large downturn in the robot industry, Stark decided to purchase a smaller niche robot maker in the hopes of capturing a different segment of the consumer market and to better learn the manufacturing processes of other robot makers. Starks still operates as two separate divisions, Classic and New Age, with each division manager employing a different manufacturing philosophy. The Classic manager is concerned with low input costs and quantity in production in addition to brand recognition and robot power. The New Age manager is concerned with quality and innovation in manufacturing, fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly robots. SAC continued to suffer losses even with the addition of the New Age division.…

UTAH CORP. is a chemical manufacturer that supplies various products to industrial users. The company plans to introduce a new chemical solution called Bysap, for which it needs to develop a standard product cost. The following labor information is available on the production of Bysap. The product, which is bottled in 10-liter containers, is primarily a mixture of Byclyn, Salex, and Protet. The finished product is highly unstable, and one 10-liter batch out of six is rejected at the final inspection. Rejected batches have no commercial value and are thrown out. It takes a worker 35 minutes to process one 10-liter batch of Bysap. Employees work on eight-hour a day, including one hour per day for rest breaks and cleanup. What is the standard labor time to produce one 10-liter batch of Bysap? 2. MAINE INC.’s direct labor costs for the month of May are as follows: Standard direct labor hours allowed 12,500 Actual direct labor…

RUE BENNETT Company develops software for small businesses and household computers. The majority of the company's computer programmers are working on developing software that will perform relatively specialized functions in a user-friendly manner. Before the working model is released to production for the preparation of masters and additional testing, it undergoes extensive testing. As a result of this meticulous planning, various computer software packages have been developed that have proven to be very successful in the industry. RUE BENNETT Company incurred the following costs during 2020: Cost to reproduce and prepare software for sale 200,002 Amortization of capitalized software development costs from current and prior years 94,321 Expenses related to projects after technological feasibility has been established but before software is available for commercial production 151,323 Salaries and wages of programmers doing research 910,000 Expenses related…

Toy Creations Ltd, a small and medium enterprise, specialises in children’s toys with its products being categorised into three major groups: Plushies, Dolls and Animals. The market for Plushies is expected to expand in the future but Toy Creations is currently struggling to maintain its market share due to the intense price competition in the industry. The market for Animals is assessed to be least price-sensitive among allproducts. The company currently uses the step-down method to allocate its Material Handling and Quality Assurance (QA) costs to the three product groups, and prices all products using a cost-plus basis. The Material Handling and QA department costs are allocated based on the amount of purchases and number of labour hours respectively. The following information is available for the cost allocation exercise. Material Handling QA Plushies Dolls Animals Cost before allocation (incl. salaries) $2,500,000 $2,000,000 $1,800,000 $4,300,000 $3,250,000 Purchases…

JCL Inc. is a major chip manufacturing firm that sells its products to computer manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, and others. In simplified terms, chip making at JCL Inc. involves three basic operations: depositing, patterning, and etching. • Depositing: Using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology, an insulating material is deposited on the wafer surface, forming a thin layer of solid material on the chip. • Patterning: Photolithography projects a microscopic circuit pattern on the wafer surface, which has a light-sensitive chemical like the emulsion on photographic film. It is repeated many times as each layer of the chip is built. • Etching: Etching removes selected material from the chip surface to create the device structures. Table 7.4 lists the required processing times and setup times at each of the steps. There is unlimited space for buffer inventory between these steps. Assume that the unit of production is a wafer, from which individual chips are cut at a later stage.a.…

The XYZ Co. is a company specializing in the manufacture and sale of a range of products for gamers. It is split into two divisions: the battery division (Division X) and the adaptor division (Division Y). Division Y sells one product - portable battery chargers for gamers which can be attached to a car’s own battery and used to start up the engine when the car’s own battery fails. Division X sells adaptors which are used by customers to charge mobile devices and laptops by attaching them to the car’s internal power source. Recently, Division Y has upgraded its portable battery so it can also be used to rapidly charge mobile devices and laptops. The mobile device or laptop must be attached to the battery using a special adaptor which is supplied to the customer with the battery. Division Y currently buys the adaptors from Division X, which also sells them externally to other companies. The following data is available for both divisions: DIVISION Y Selling price for each portable…

Solution Summary: The author explains incremental analysis as the accumulation of information that pertains to a single course of action or product line.

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Chapter 7 Solutions

Circuit board. 1 each @ $2.00	$2.00
Plastic case, 1 each @ $0.80	0.80
Alarms. 4 @ $0.15 each	0.60
Labor, 15 minutes $12/hour	3.00
Overhead, $2.00 per labor hour	0.50