Chapter 17, Problem 17.35P

Equivalent units, comprehensive. Louisville Sports manufactures baseball bats for use by players in the major leagues. A critical requirement for elite players is that each bat they use have an identical look and feel. As a result, Louisville uses a dedicated process to produce bats to each player’s specifications.

One of Louisville’s key clients is Ryan Brown of the Green Bay Brewers. Producing his bat involves the use of three materials—ash, cork, and ink—and a sequence of 20 standardized steps. Materials are added as follows:

Ash: This is the basic wood used in bats. Eighty percent of the ash content is added at the start of the process; the rest is added at the start of the 16th step of the process.

Cork: This is inserted into the bat in order to increase Ryan’s bat speed. Half of the cork is introduced at the beginning of the seventh step of the process; the rest is added at the beginning of the 14th step.

Ink: This is used to stamp Ryan’s name on the finished bat and is added at the end of the process.

Of the total conversion costs, 6% are added during each of the first 10 steps of the process, and 4% are added at each of the remaining 10 steps.

On May 1, 2017, Louisville had 100 bats in inventory. These bats had completed the ninth step of the process as of April 30, 2017. During May, Louisville put another 60 bats into production. At the end of May, Louisville was left with 40 bats that had completed the 12th step of the production process.

1. 1. Under the weighted-average method of process costing, compute equivalent units of work done for each relevant input for the month of May.
2. 2. Under the FIFO method of process costing, compute equivalent units of work done for each relevant input for the month of May.