Process Costing and Ethics: Increasing Production to Boost Profits Pacific Siding Incorporated produces synthetic wood siding used in the construction of residential and commercial buildings. Pacific Siding’s fiscal year ends on March 31, and the weighted-average method is used for the company’s process costing system. Financial results for the first 11 months of the current fiscal year (through February 28) are well below the expectations of management, owners, and creditors. Halfway through the month of March, the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief financial officer (CFO) ask the controller to estimate the production results for the month of March in the form of a production cost report (the company has only one production department). This report is shown below. Armed with the preliminary production cost report for March, and knowing that the company’s production is well below capacity, the CEO and CFO decide to produce as many units as possible for the last half of March, even though sales are not expected to increase any time soon. The production manager is told to push his employees to get as far as possible with production, thereby increasing the percentage of completion for ending WIP inventory. However, since the production process takes three weeks to complete, all of the units produced in the last half of March will be in WIP inventory at the end of March. Required a. Explain how the CEO and CFO expect to increase profit (net income) for the year by boosting production at the end of March. Assume that most overhead costs are fixed. b. Using the following assumptions, prepare a revised estimate of production results in the form of a production cost report for the month of March. Assumptions based on the CEO and CFO request to boost production: (1) Units started and partially completed during the period will increase to 225,000 (from the initial estimate of 70,000). This is the projected ending WIP inventory at March 31. (2) Percentage of completion estimates for units in ending WIP inventory will increase to 80 percent for direct materials, 85 percent for direct labor, and 90 percent for overhead. (3) Costs incurred during the period will increase to $95,000 for direct materials, $102,000 for direct labor, and $150,000 for overhead (recall that most overhead costs are fixed). (4) All units completed and transferred out during March are sold by March 31. c. Compare your new production cost report with the one prepared by the controller. How much do you expect profit to increase as a result of increasing production during the last half of March? d. Is the request made by the CEO and CFO ethical? Explain your answer.

Communications Jamarcus Bradshaw, plant manager of Georgia Paper Companys papermaking mill, was looking over the cost of production reports for July and August for the Papermaking Department. The reports revealed the following: Jamarcus was concerned about the increased cost per ton from the output of the department. As a result, he asked the plant controller to perform a study to help explain these results. The controller, Leann Brunswick, began the analysis by performing some interviews of key plant personnel in order to understand what the problem might be. Excerpts from an interview with Len Tyson, a paper machine operator, follow: Len: We have two papermaking machines in the department. I have no data, but I think paper machine No. 1 is applying too much pulp and, thus, is wasting both conversion and materials resources. We haven't had repairs on paper machine No. 1 in a while. Maybe this is the problem. Leann: How does too much pulp result in wasted resources? Len: Well, you see, if too much pulp is applied, then we will waste pulp material. The customer will not pay for the extra product; we just use more material to make the product. Also, when there is too much pulp, the machine must be slowed down in order to complete the drying process. This results in additional conversion costs. Leann: Do you have any other suspicions? Len: Well, as you know, we have two productsgreen paper and yellow paper. They are identical except for the color. The color is added to the papermaking process in the paper machine. I think that during August these two color papers have been behaving very differently. I don't have any data, but it just seems as though the amount of waste associated with the green paper has increased. Leann: Why is this? Len: I understand that there has been a change in specifications for the green paper, starting near the beginning of August. This change could be causing the machines to run poorly when making green paper. If this is the case, the cost per ton would increase for green paper. Leann also asked for a database printout providing greater detail on Augusts operating results. September 9 Requested by: Leann Brunswick Papermaking DepartmentAugust detail Prior to preparing a report, Leann resigned from Georgia Paper Company to start her own business. You have been asked to take the data that Leann collected, and write a memo to Jamarcus Bradshaw with a recommendation to management. Your memo should include analysis of the August data to determine whether the paper machine or the paper color explains the increase in the unit cost from July. Include any supporting schedules that are appropriate. Round any calculations to the nearest cent.

Product decisions under bottlenecked operations Mill Metals Inc. has three grades of metal product, Type 5, Type 10, and Type 20. Financial data for the three grades are as follows: Mills operations require all three grades to be melted in a furnace before being formed. The furnace runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is a production bottleneck. The furnace hours required per unit of each product are as follows: The Marketing Department is considering a new marketing and sales campaign. Which product should be emphasized in the marketing and sales campaign in order to maximize profitability?

Fresno Industries Inc. manufactures and sells high-quality camping tents. The company began operations on January 1 and operated at 100% of capacity (150,000 units) during the first month, creating an ending inventory of 20,000 units. During February, the company produced 130,000 units during the month but sold 150,000 units at 500 per unit. The February manufacturing costs and selling and administrative expenses were as follows: a. Prepare an income statement according to the absorption costing concept for the month ending February 28. b. Prepare an income statement according to the variable costing concept for for the month ending February 28. c. What is the reason for the difference in the amount of operating income reported in (a) and (b)?

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.

Cost Classification, Income Statement Gateway Construction Company, run by Jack Gateway, employs 25 to 30 people as subcontractors for laying gas, water, and sewage pipelines. Most of Gateways work comes from contracts with city and state agencies in Nebraska. The companys sales volume averages 3 million, and profits vary between 0 and 10% of sales. Sales and profits have been somewhat below average for the past 3 years due to a recession and intense competition. Because of this competition, Jack constantly reviews the prices that other companies bid for jobs. When a bid is lost, he analyzes the reasons for the differences between his bid and that of his competitors and uses this information to increase the competitiveness of future bids. Jack believes that Gateways current accounting system is deficient. Currently, all expenses are simply deducted from revenues to arrive at operating income. No effort is made to distinguish among the costs of laying pipe, obtaining contracts, and administering the company. Yet all bids are based on the costs of laying pipe. With these thoughts in mind, Jack looked more carefully at the income statement for the previous year (see below). First, he noted that jobs were priced on the basis of equipment hours, with an average price of 165 per equipment hour. However, when it came to classifying and assigning costs, he needed some help. One thing that really puzzled him was how to classify his own 114,000 salary. About half of his time was spent in bidding and securing contracts, and the other half was spent in general administrative matters. Required: 1. Classify the costs in the income statement as (1) costs of laying pipe (production costs), (2) costs of securing contracts (selling costs), or (3) costs of general administration. For production costs, identify direct materials, direct labor, and overhead costs. The company never has significant work in process (most jobs are started and completed within a day). 2. Assume that a significant driver is equipment hours. Identify the expenses that would likely be traced to jobs using this driver. Explain why you feel these costs are traceable using equipment hours. What is the cost per equipment hour for these traceable costs?

Estimated income statements, using absorption and variable costing Prior to the first month of operations ending October 31, Marshall Inc. estimated the following operating results: The company is evaluating a proposal to manufacture 50,000 units instead of 40,000 units, thus creating an ending inventory of 10,000 units. Manufacturing the additional units will not change sales, unit variable factory overhead costs, total fixed factory overhead cost, or total selling and administrative expenses. a. Prepare an estimated income statement, comparing operating results if 40,000 and 50,000 units are manufactured in (1) the absorption costing format and (2) the variable costing format. b. What is the reason for the difference in operating income reported for the two levels of production by the absorption costing income statement?

Handbrain Inc. is considering a change to activity-based product costing. The company produces two products, cell phones and tablet PCs, in a single production department. The production department is estimated to require 2,000 direct labor hours. The total indirect labor is budgeted to be 200,000. Time records from indirect labor employees revealed that they spent 30% of their time setting up production runs and 70% of their time supporting actual production. The following information about cell phones and tablet PCs was determined from the corporate records: a. Determine the indirect labor cost per unit allocated to cell phones and tablet PCs under a single plantwide factory overhead rate system using the direct labor hours as the allocation base. b. Determine the budgeted activity costs and activity rates for the indirect labor under activity-based costing. Assume two activitiesone for setup and the other for production support. c. Determine the activity cost per unit for indirect labor allocated to each product under activity-based costing. d. Why are the per-unit allocated costs in (a) different from the per-unit activity cost assigned to the products in (c)?

Suppose that Kicker had the following sales and cost experience (in thousands of dollars) for May of the current year and for May of the prior year: In May of the prior year, Kicker started an intensive quality program designed to enable it to build original equipment manufacture (OEM) speaker systems for a major automobile company. The program was housed in research and development. In the beginning of the current year, Kickers accounting department exercised tighter control over sales commissions, ensuring that no dubious (e.g., double) payments were made. The increased sales in the current year required additional warehouse space that Kicker rented in town. (Round ratios to four decimal places. Round sales dollars computations to the nearest dollar.) Required: 1. Calculate the contribution margin ratio for May of both years. 2. Calculate the break-even point in sales dollars for both years. 3. Calculate the margin of safety in sales dollars for both years. 4. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Analyze the differences shown by your calculations in Requirements 1, 2, and 3.

Ethics in Action In August, Lannister Company introduced a new performance measurement system in manufacturing operations. One of the new performance measures is lead time, which is determined by tagging a random sample of items with a log sheet throughout the month. The log sheets recorded the time that the sample items started production and the time that they ended production, as well as all steps in between. At the end of the month, the controller collected the log sheets and computed the average lead time of the tagged products. This number was reported to central management and was used to evaluate the performance of the plant manager. Because of the poor lead time results reported for August, the plant was under extreme pressure to reduce lead time in September. The following memo was intercepted by the controller. Date: September 3 To: Hourly Employees From: Plant Manager During last month, you may have noticed that some of the products were tagged with a log sheet. This sheet records the time that a product enters production and the time that it leaves production. The difference between these two times is termed the lead time. Our plant is evaluated on improving lead time. From now on, I ask all of you to keep an eye out for the tagged items. When you see a tagged item, it is to receive special attention. Work on that item first, and then immediately move it to the next operation. Under no circumstances should tagged items wait on any other work that you have. Naturally, report accurate information. I insist that you record the correct times on the log sheet as the product goes through your operations. How should the controller respond to this discovery?

Types of Responsibility Centers Consider each of the following independent scenarios: a. Terrin Belson, plant manager for the laser printer factory of Compugear Inc., brushed his hair back and sighed. December had been a bad month. Two machines had broken down, and some factory production workers (all on salary) were idled for part of the month. Materials prices increased, and insurance premiums on the factory increased. No way out of it; costs were going up. He hoped that the marketing vice president would be able to push through some price increases, but that really wasnt his department. b. Joanna Pauly was delighted to see that her ROI figures had increased for the third straight year. She was sure that her campaign to lower costs and use machinery more efficiently (enabling her factories to sell several older machines) was the reason why. Joanna planned to take full credit for the improvements at her semiannual performance review. c. Gil Rodriguez, sales manager for ComputerWorks, was not pleased with a memo from headquarters detailing the recent cost increases for the laser printer line. Headquarters suggested raising prices. Great, thought Gil, an increase in price will kill sales and revenue will go down. Why cant the plant shape up and cut costs like every other company in America is doing? Why turn this into my problem? d. Susan Whitehorse looked at the quarterly profit and loss statement with disgust. Revenue was down, and cost was upwhat a combination! Then she had an idea. If she cut back on maintenance of equipment and let a product engineer go, expenses would decreaseperhaps enough to reverse the trend in income. e. Shonna Lowry had just been hired to improve the fortunes of the Southern Division of ABC Inc. She met with top staff and hammered out a 3-year plan to improve the situation. A centerpiece of the plan is the retiring of obsolete equipment and the purchasing of state-of-the-art, computer-assisted machinery. The new machinery would take time for the workers to learn to use, but once that was done, waste would be virtually eliminated. Required: For each of the above independent scenarios, indicate the type of responsibility center involved (cost, revenue, profit, or investment).

Production run size and activity improvement Littlejohn, Inc., manufactures machined parts for the automotive industry. The activity cost associated with Part XX-10 is as follows: Each unit requires 30 minutes of fabrication direct labor. Moreover, Part XX-10 is manufactured in production run sizes of 50 units. Each production run is set up, scheduled (production control), and moved as a batch of 50 units. Management is considering improvements in the setup, production control, and moving activities in order to cut the production run sizes by half. As a result, the number of setups, production runs, and moves will double from 10 to 20. Such improvements are expected to speed the companys ability to respond to customer orders. Setup is reengineered so that it takes 60% of the original cost per setup. Production control software will allow production control effort and cost per production run to decline by 60%. Moving distance was reduced by 40%, thus reducing the cost per move by the same amount. A. Determine the revised activity cost per unit under the proposed changes. B. Did these improvements reduce the activity cost per unit? C. What cost per unit for setup would be required for the solution in (a) to equal the base solution?

Zippy Inc. manufactures a fuel additive, Surge, which has a stable selling price of 44 per drum. The company has been producing and selling 80,000 drums per month. In connection with your examination of Zippys financial statements for the year ended September 30, management has asked you to review some computations made by Zippys cost accountant. Your working papers disclose the following about the companys operations: Standard costs per drum of product manufactured: Materials: Costs and expenses during September: Chemicals: 645,000 gallons purchased at a cost of 1,140,000; 600,000 gallons used. Empty drums: 94,000 purchased at a cost of 94,000; 80,000 drums used. Direct labor: 81,000 hours worked at a cost of 816,480. Factory overhead: 768,000. Required: Calculate the following for September, using the formulas on pages 421422 and 424 (Round unit costs to the nearest whole cent and compute the materials variances for both Surge and for the drums.): 1. Materials quantity variance. 2. Materials purchase price variance. 3. Labor efficiency variance. 4. Labor rate variance.

Solution Summary: The author explains how the CEO and CFO expect to increase profit (net income) by boosting production at the end of March.

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