Ethics in action
Dash Riprock is a cost analyst with Safe Insurance Company. Safe is applying standards to its claims payment operations. Claims payment is a repetitive operation that could be evaluated with standards. Dash used time and motion studies to identify an ideal standard of 36 claims processed per hour. The Claims Processing Department manager, Henry Tudor, has rejected this standard and has argued that the standard should be 30 claims processed per hour. Henry and Dash were unable to agree, so they decided to discuss this matter openly at a joint meeting with the Vice President of Operations, who would make a final decision. Prior to the meeting, Dash wrote the following memo to the Vice President:
To: Anne Boleyn, Vice President of Operations
From: Dash Riprock
Re: Standards in the Claims Processing Department
As you know, Henry and I are scheduled to meet with you to discuss our disagreement about the appropriate standards for the Claims Processing Department. I have conducted time and motion studies and have determined that the ideal standard is 36 claims processed per hour. Henry argues that 30 claims processed per hour would be more appropriate. I believe he is trying to “pad” the budget with some slack. I’m not sure what he is trying to get away with, but I believe a tight standard will drive efficiency up in his area. I hope you will agree when we meet with you next week.
Discuss the ethical and professional issues in this situation.
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Managerial Accounting
- Advent Software uses standards to manage the cost of the programming staff. There are two programmer levels, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 programmers normally work on the easier projects. Level 1 and Level 2 programmers are paid 25 and 35 per hour, respectively. It has been determined from experience that Level 2 programmers can complete 50 lines of code per hour. If a Level 1 programmer is assigned to a Level 2 task, the programming work will be slower than the Level 2 time standard, but will be accomplished at a lower labor rate. During a recent week, a Level 2 project was assigned to a Level 1 programmer. The programmer worked 40 hours and completed 1,400 lines of code. a. Determine the direct labor time variance for this worker. b. Determine the direct labor rate variance for this worker. c. Using the information in (a) and (b), is it more cost effective to use a Level 1 worker or a Level 2 worker on a Level 2 project?arrow_forwardRizzo Goal Inc. produces and sells hockey equipment, often custom made for online orders. The company has the following performance metrics on its balanced scorecard: days from ordered to delivered, number of shipping errors, customer retention rate, and market share. A measure map illustrates that the days from ordered to delivered and the number of shipping errors are both expected to directly affect the customer retention rate, which affects market share. Additional internal analysis finds that: Every shipping error over three shipping errors per month reduces the customer retention rate by 1.5%. On average, each day above three days from ordered to delivered yields a reduction in the customer retention rate of 1%. Each day before three days from order to delivery yields an increase in the customer retention rate of 1%, on average. Rizzo Goal Inc.s current customer retention rate is 60%. The company estimates that for every 1% increase or decrease in the customer retention rate, market share changes 0.5% in the same direction. Rizzo Goal Inc.s current market share is 21.4%. Ignoring any other factors, if the company has six shipping errors this month and an average of 3.5 days from ordered to delivered, determine (a) the new customer retention rate and (b) the new market share that Rizzo Goal Inc. expects to have.arrow_forwardSpecial-Order Decision, Qualitative Aspects Randy Stone, manager of Specialty Paper Products Company, was agonizing over an offer for an order requesting 5,000 boxes of calendars. Specialty Paper Products was operating at 70% of its capacity and could use the extra business. Unfortunately, the orders offering price of 4.20 per box was below the cost to produce the calendars. The controller, Louis Barns, was opposed to taking a loss on the deal. However, the personnel manager, Yatika Blaine, argued in favor of accepting the order even though a loss would be incurred. It would avoid the problem of layoffs and would help to maintain the companys community image. The full cost to produce a box of calendars follows: Later that day, Louis and Yatika met over coffee. Louis sympathized with Yatiks concerns and suggested that the two of them rethink the special-order decision. He offered to determine relevant costs if Yatika would list the activities that would be affected by a layoff. Yatika eagerly agreed and came up with the following activities: an increase in the state unemployment insurance rate from 1% to 2% of total payroll, notification costs to lay off approximately 20 employees, and increased costs of rehiring and retraining workers when the downturn was over. Louis determined that these activities would cost the following amounts: Total payroll is 1,460,000 per year. Layoff paperwork is 25 per laid-off employee. Rehiring and retraining is 150 per new employee. Required: 1. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Assume that the company will accept the order only if it increases total profits (without taking the potential layoffs into consideration). Should the company accept or reject the order? Provide supporting computations. 2. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Consider the new information on activity costs associated with the layoff. Should the company accept or reject the order? Provide supporting computations.arrow_forward
- Deepa Dalal opened a free-standing radiology clinic. She had anticipated that the costs for the radiological tests would be primarily fixed, but she found that costs increased with the number of tests performed. Costs for this service over the past nine months are as follows: Required: 1. Prepare a scattergraph based on the preceding data. Use cost for the vertical axis and number of radiology tests for the horizontal axis. Based on an examination of the scattergraph, does there appear to be a linear relationship between the cost of radiology service and the number of tests? 2. Compute the cost formula for radiology services using the high-low method. 3. Calculate the predicted cost of radiology services for October for 3,500 tests using the formula found in Requirement 2.arrow_forwardCarpetland salespersons average 8,000 per week in sales. Steve Contois, the firms vice president, proposes a compensation plan with new selling incentives. Steve hopes that the results of a trial selling period will enable him to conclude that the compensation plan increases the average sales per salesperson. a. Develop the appropriate null and alternative hypotheses. b. What is the Type I error in this situation? What are the consequences of making this error? c. What is the Type II error in this situation? What are the consequences of making this error?arrow_forwardMantenga Company provides routine maintenance services for heavy moving and transportation vehicles. Although the vehicles vary, the maintenance services provided follow a fairly standard pattern. Recently, a potential customer has approached the company, requesting a new maintenance service for a radically different type of vehicle. New servicing equipment and some new labor skills will be needed to provide the maintenance service. The customer is placing an initial order to service 150 vehicles and has indicated that if the service is satisfactory, several additional orders of the same size will be placed every 3 months over the next 3 to 5 years. Mantenga uses a standard costing system and wants to develop a set of standards for the new vehicle. The usage standards for direct materials such as oil, lubricants, and transmission fluids were easily established. The usage standard is 25 quarts per servicing, with a standard cost of 4 per quart. Management has also decided on standard rates for labor and overhead. The standard labor rate is 15 per direct labor hour, the standard variable overhead rate is 8 per direct labor hour, and the standard fixed overhead rate is 12 per direct labor hour. The only remaining decision is the standard for labor usage. To assist in developing this standard, the engineering department has estimated the following relationship between units serviced and average direct labor hours used: As the workers learn more about servicing the new vehicles, they become more efficient, and the average time needed to service one unit declines. Engineering estimates that all of the learning effects will be achieved by the time that 320 units are produced. No further improvement will be realized past this level. Required: 1. Assume that the average labor time is 0.768 hour per unit after the learning effects are achieved. Using this information, prepare a standard cost sheet that details the standard service cost per unit. (Note: Round costs to two decimal places.) 2. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Given the per-unit labor standard set, would you expect a favorable or an unfavorable labor efficiency? Explain. Calculate the labor efficiency variance for servicing the first 320 units. 3. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Assuming no further improvement in labor time per unit is possible past 320 units, explain why the cumulative average time per unit at 640 units is lower than the time at 320 units. Show that the standard labor time should be 0.768 hour per unit. Explain why this value is a good choice for the per-unit labor standard.arrow_forward
- Johnson Filtration. Inc., provides maintenance service for water filtration systems throughout southern Florida. Customers contact Johnson with requests for maintenance service on their water filtration systems. To estimate the service time and the service cost. Johnson’s managers want to predict the repair time necessary for each maintenance request. Hence, repair time in hours is the dependent variable. Repair time is believed to be related to three factors: the number of months since the last maintenance service, the type of repair problem (mechanical or electrical), and the repairperson who performs the repair (Donna Newton or Bob Jones). Data for a sample of 10 service calls are reported in the following table: Develop the simple linear regression equation to predict repair time given the number of months since the last maintenance service, and use the results to test the hypothesis that no relationship exists between repair time and the number of months since the last maintenance service at the 0.05 level of significance. What is the interpretation of this relationship? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Using the simple linear regression model developed in part (a), calculate the predicted repair time and residual for each of the 10 repairs in the data. Sort the data in ascending order by value of the residual. Do you see any pattern in the residuals for the two types of repair? Do you see any pattern in the residuals for the two repairpersons? Do these results suggest any potential modifications to your simple linear regression model? Now create a scatter chart with months since last service on the x-axis and repair time in hours on the y-axis for which the points representing electrical and mechanical repairs are shown in different shapes and/or colors. Create a similar scatter chart of months since last service and repair time in hours for which the points representing repairs by Bob Jones and Donna Newton are shown in different shapes and/or colors. Do these charts and the results of your residual analysis suggest the same potential modifications to your simple linear regression model? Create a new dummy variable that is equal to zero if the type of repair is mechanical and one if the type of repair is electrical. Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service and the type of repair. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Create a new dummy variable that is equal to zero if the repairperson is Bob Jones and one if the repairperson is Donna Newton. Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service and the repairperson. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Develop the multiple regression equation to predict repair time, given the number of months since the last maintenance service, the type of repair, and the repairperson. What are the interpretations of the estimated regression parameters? What does the coefficient of determination tell you about this model? Which of these models would you use? Why?arrow_forwardTypes 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).arrow_forwardIn 20X1, Don Blackburn, president of Price Electronics, received a report indicating that quality costs were 31% of sales. Faced with increasing pressures from imported goods. Don resolved to take measures to improve the overall quality of the companys products. After hiring a consultant in 20X1, the company began an aggressive program of total quality control. At the end of 20X5, Don requested an analysis of the progress the company had made in reducing and controlling quality costs. The accounting department assembled the following data: Required: 1. Compute the quality costs as a percentage of sales by category and in total for each year. 2. Prepare a multiple-year trend graph for quality costs, both by total costs and by category. Using the graph, assess the progress made in reducing and controlling quality costs. Does the graph provide evidence that quality has improved? Explain. 3. Using the 20X1 quality cost relationships (assume all costs are variable), calculate the quality costs that would have prevailed in 20X4. By how much did profits increase in 20X4 because of the quality improvement program? Repeat for 20X5.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_forwardThe Expenditure Approval Process Roberto is the plant superintendent of a small manufacturing company that is owned by a large corporation. The corporation has a policy that any expenditure over $1,000 must be approved by the chief financial officer in the corporate headquarters. The approval process takes a minimum of three weeks. Roberto would like to order a new labeling machine that is expected to reduce costs and pay for itself in six months. The machine costs $2,200, but Roberto can buy the sales reps demo for $1,800. Roberto has asked the sales rep to send two separate bills for $900 each. What would you do if you were the sales rep? Do you agree or disagree with Robertos actions? What do you think about the corporate policy?arrow_forwardProduct 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?arrow_forward
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