i-Qua group is a drinking water factory in US. As the business progresses, demand is increasing in Texas, Chicago and New York. And the company owner plans to build a factory so that customer needs in the area can be met without having to send from the main factory. Some of the considerations for decision making can be seen based on the data below:   Cost/box Location Fixed Cost/Year ($) Material ($) Labor ($) Overhead ($) Texas 200.000 0,10 0,40 0,5 Chicago 180.000 0,25 0,75 0,5 New York 170.000 0,5 1,00 1,00 a. How much is the annual sales volume (box)  for each area to be able to compete on a competitive advantage strategy with competitors? b. What do you suggest to the company based on the cost data above for the location of its factory construction? Explain why and use the calculation data so that decision making can be in accordance with the company strategy that you have learned.

Bumblebee Mobiles manufactures a line of cell phones. The management has identified the following overhead costs and related cost drivers for the coming year. The following were incurred in manufacturing two of their cell phones, Bubble and Burst, during the first quarter. REQUIREMENT Review the worksheet called ABC that follows these requirements. You have been asked to determine the cost of each product using an activity-based cost system. Note that the problem information is already entered into the Data Section of the ABC worksheet.

Carolina Yachts builds custom yachts in its production factory in South Carolina. Once complete, these yachts must be shipped to the dealership. They have collected this shipping cost data: Prepare a scatter graph of the shipping data. Plot cost on the vertical axis and yachts shipped on the horizontal axis. Is the relationship between shipping costs and unit shipped approximately linear? Draw a straight line through the scatter graph. Using the high-low method, create the cost formula for Carolina Yachts shipping costs. The least-squares regression method was used and the analysis resulted in this cost equation: Y= 4,000+ 1,275x. Comment on the accuracy of your high-low method estimation. What would you estimate shipping costs to be if Carolina Yachts shipped 10 yachts in a single month? Use the cost formula you obtained in part B. Comment on how accurately this is reflected by the scatter graph you constructed. What factors other than number of yachts shipped do you think could affect Carolina Yachts shipping expense? Explain.

Evans, 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?