Autotech Manufacturing is engaged in the production of replacement parts for automobiles. One plant specializes in the production of two parts: Part #127 and Part #234. Part #127 produced the highest volume of activity, and for many years it was the only part produced by the plant. Five years ago, Part #234 was added. Part #234 was more difficult to manufacture and required special tooling and setups. Profits increased for the first three years after the addition of the new product. In the last two years, however, the plant faced intense competition, and its sales of Part #127 dropped. In fact, the plant showed a small loss in the most recent reporting period. Much of the competition was from foreign sources, and the plant manager was convinced that the foreign producers were guilty of selling the part below the cost of producing it. The following conversation between Patty Goodson, plant manager, and Joseph Fielding, divisional marketing manager, reflects the concerns of the division about the future of the plant and its products. JOSEPH: You know, Patty, the divisional manager is real concerned about the plant’s trend. He indicated that in this budgetary environment, we can’t afford to carry plants that don’t show a profit. We shut one down just last month because it couldn’t handle the competition. PATTY: Joe, you and I both know that Part #127 has a reputation for quality and value. It has been a mainstay for years. I don’t understand what’s happening. JOSEPH: I just received a call from one of our major customers concerning Part #127. He said that a sales representative from another firm offered the part at $20 per unit—$11 less than what we charge. It’s hard to compete with a price like that. Perhaps the plant is simply obsolete. PATTY: No. I don’t buy that. From my sources, I know we have good technology. We are efficient. And it’s costing a little more than $21 to produce that part. I don’t see how these companies can afford to sell it so cheaply. I’m not convinced that we should meet the price. Perhaps a better strategy is to emphasize producing and selling more of Part #234. Our margin is high on this product, and we have virtually no competition for it. JOSEPH: You may be right. I think we can increase the price significantly and not lose business. I called a few customers to see how they would react to a 25 percent increase in price, and they all said that they would still purchase the same quantity as before. PATTY: It sounds promising. However, before we make a major commitment to Part #234, I think we had better explore other possible explanations. I want to know how our production costs compare to those of our competitors. Perhaps we could be more efficient and find a way to earn our normal return on Part #127. The market is so much bigger for this part. I’m not sure we can survive with only Part #234. Besides, my production people hate that part. It’s very difficult to produce. After her meeting with Joseph, Patty requested an investigation of the production costs and comparative efficiency. She received approval to hire a consulting group to make an independent investigation. After a three-month assessment, the consulting group provided the following information on the plant’s production activities and costs associated with the two products: * Calculated using a plantwide rate based on direct labor hours. This is the current way of assigning the plant’s overhead to its products. The consulting group recommended switching the overhead assignment to an activity-based approach. It maintained that activity-based cost assignment is more accurate and will provide better information for decision making. To facilitate this recommendation, it grouped the plant’s activities into homogeneous sets with the following costs: Required: 1. Verify the overhead cost per unit reported by the consulting group using direct labor hours to assign overhead. Compute the per-unit gross margin for each product. 2. After learning of activity-based costing, Patty asked the controller to compute the product cost using this approach. Recompute the unit cost of each product using activity-based costing. Compute the per-unit gross margin for each product. 3. Should the company switch its emphasis from the high-volume product to the low-volume product? Comment on the validity of the plant manager’s concern that competitors are selling below the cost of making Part #127. 4. Explain the apparent lack of competition for Part #234. Comment also on the willingness of customers to accept a 25 percent increase in price for Part #234. 5. Assume that you are the manager of the plant. Describe what actions you would take based on the information provided by the activity-based unit costs.

Bienestar, Inc., has two plants that manufacture a line of wheelchairs. One is located in Kansas City, and the other in Tulsa. Each plant is set up as a profit center. During the past year, both plants sold their tilt wheelchair model for 1,620. Sales volume averages 20,000 units per year in each plant. Recently, the Kansas City plant reduced the price of the tilt model to 1,440. Discussion with the Kansas City manager revealed that the price reduction was possible because the plant had reduced its manufacturing and selling costs by reducing what was called non-value-added costs. The Kansas City manufacturing and selling costs for the tilt model were 1,260 per unit. The Kansas City manager offered to loan the Tulsa plant his cost accounting manager to help it achieve similar results. The Tulsa plant manager readily agreed, knowing that his plant must keep pacenot only with the Kansas City plant but also with competitors. A local competitor had also reduced its price on a similar model, and Tulsas marketing manager had indicated that the price must be matched or sales would drop dramatically. In fact, the marketing manager suggested that if the price were dropped to 1,404 by the end of the year, the plant could expand its share of the market by 20 percent. The plant manager agreed but insisted that the current profit per unit must be maintained. He also wants to know if the plant can at least match the 1,260 per-unit cost of the Kansas City plant and if the plant can achieve the cost reduction using the approach of the Kansas City plant. The plant controller and the Kansas City cost accounting manager have assembled the following data for the most recent year. The actual cost of inputs, their value-added (ideal) quantity levels, and the actual quantity levels are provided (for production of 20,000 units). Assume there is no difference between actual prices of activity units and standard prices. Required: 1. Calculate the target cost for expanding the Tulsa plants market share by 20 percent, assuming that the per-unit profitability is maintained as requested by the plant manager. 2. Calculate the non-value-added cost per unit. Assuming that non-value-added costs can be reduced to zero, can the Tulsa plant match the Kansas City per-unit cost? Can the target cost for expanding market share be achieved? What actions would you take if you were the plant manager? 3. Describe the role that benchmarking played in the effort of the Tulsa plant to protect and improve its competitive position.

Wright Plastic Products is a small company that specialized in the production of plastic dinner plates until several years ago. Although profits for the company had been good, they have been declining in recent years because of increased competition. Many competitors offer a full range of plastic products, and management felt that this created a competitive disadvantage. The output of the companys plants was exclusively devoted to plastic dinner plates. Three years ago, management made a decision to add additional product lines. They determined that existing idle capacity in each plant could easily be adapted to produce other plastic products. Each plant would produce one additional product line. For example, the Atlanta plant would add a line of plastic cups. Moreover, the variable cost of producing a package of cups (one dozen) was virtually identical to that of a package of plastic plates. (Variable costs referred to here are those that change in total as the units produced change. The costs include direct materials, direct labor, and unit-based variable overhead such as power and other machine costs.) Since the fixed expenses would not change, the new product was forecast to increase profits significantly (for the Atlanta plant). Two years after the addition of the new product line, the profits of the Atlanta plant (as well as other plants) had not improvedin fact, they had dropped. Upon investigation, the president of the company discovered that profits had not increased as expected because the so-called fixed cost pool had increased dramatically. The president interviewed the manager of each support department at the Atlanta plant. Typical responses from four of those managers are given next. Materials handling: The additional batches caused by the cups increased the demand for materials handling. We had to add one forklift and hire additional materials handling labor. Inspection: Inspecting cups is more complicated than plastic plates. We only inspect a sample drawn from every batch, but you need to understand that the number of batches has increased with this new product line. We had to hire more inspection labor. Purchasing: The new line increased the number of purchase orders. We had to use more resources to handle this increased volume. Accounting: There were more transactions to process than before. We had to increase our staff. Required: 1. Explain why the results of adding the new product line were not accurately projected. 2. Could this problem have been avoided with an activity-based cost management system? If so, would you recommend that the company adopt this type of system? Explain and discuss the differences between an activity-based cost management system and a traditional cost management system.

Speed Racer in Victoria makes bicycles for people of all ages. The frames division makes and paints the frames and supplies them to the assembly division where the bicycles are assembled. Speed Racer is a successful and profitable corporation that attributes much of its success to its decentralized operating style. Each division manager is compensated on the basis of division operating income. The assembly division currently acquires all its frames from the frames division. The assembly division manager could purchase similar frames in the market for $480. The frames division is currently operating at 80% of its capacity of 4,000 frames (units) and has the following details: Voltage Regulator Direct materials ($150 per unit x 320 units) $480,000 Direct manufacturing labour ($60 per unit x 3,200 units) 192,000 Variable manufacturing overhead costs ($30 per unit × 3,200 units) 96,000 Fixed manufacturing overhead costs $624,000 All the frames division’s…

Speed Racer in Victoria makes bicycles for people of all ages. The frames division makes and paints the frames and supplies them to the assembly division where the bicycles are assembled. Speed Racer is a successful and profitable corporation that attributes much of its success to its decentralized operating style. Each division manager is compensated on the basis of division operating income. The assembly division currently acquires all its frames from the frames division. The assembly division manager could purchase similar frames in the market for $480. The frames division is currently operating at 80% of its capacity of 4,000 frames (units) and has the following details: Voltage Regulator Direct materials ($150 per unit x 320 units) $480,000 Direct manufacturing labour ($60 per unit x 3,200 units) 192,000 Variable manufacturing overhead costs ($30 per unit × 3,200 units) 96,000 Fixed manufacturing overhead costs $624,000 All the frames…

Badger Valve and Fitting Company, located in southern Wisconsin, manufactures a variety of industrial valves and pipe fittings that are sold to customers in nearby states. Currently, the company is operating at about 70 percent capacity and is earning a satisfactory return on investment. Management has been approached by Glasgow Industries Ltd. of Scotland with an offer to buy 130,000 units of a pressure valve. Glasgow Industries manufactures a valve that is almost identical to Badger's pressure valve; however, a fire in Glasgow Industries' valve plant has shut down its manufacturing operations. Glasgow needs the 130,000 valves over the next four months to meet commitments to its regular customers. Glasgow is prepared to pay $30.40 each for the valves. Badger's total product cost, based on current attainable standards, for the pressure valve is $32.00, calculated as follows: Direct material Direct labor Manufacturing overhead Total product cost Manufacturing overhead is applied to…

Mobility Partners makes wheelchairs and other assistive devices. For years it has made the rear wheel assembly for its wheelchairs.

Rico Company produces custom-made machine parts. Rico recently has implemented an activity-based management (ABM) system with the objective of reducing costs. Rico has begun analyzing each activity to determine ways to increase its efficiency. Setting up equipment was among the first group of activities to be carefully studied. The study revealed that setup hours was a good driver for the activity. During the last year, the company incurred fixed setup costs of $860,200 (salaries of 17 employees). The fixed costs provide a capacity of 39,100 hours (2,300 per employee at practical capacity). The setup activity was viewed as necessary, and the value- added standard was set at 2,300 hours. Actual setup hours used in the most recent period were 37,110. Required: 1. Calculate the volume and unused capacity variances for the setup activity. Enter all amounts as positive values. Volume Variance 22 Unused Capacity Variance $ Show Me How 2. Prepare a report that presents value-added, non varue…

Jupiter Game Company manufactures pocket electronic games. Last year Jupiter sold 25,000 games at $25 each. Total costs amounted to $525,000, of which $150,000 were considered fixed costs. In an attempt to improve its product, the company is considering replacing a component part that has a cost of $2.50 with a new and better part costing $4.50 per unit in the coming year. A new machine also would be needed to increase plant capacity. The machine would cost $18,000 with a useful life of six years and no salvage value. The company uses straight-line depreciation on all plant assets. (Ignore income taxes). 1) If Jupiter wishes to maintain the same contribution-margin ratio, what selling price per unit of product must it charge next year to cover the increased direct-material cost?

Jupiter Game Company manufactures pocket electronic games. Last year Jupiter sold 25,000 games at $25 each. Total costs amounted to $525,000, of which $150,000 were considered fixed costs. In an attempt to improve its product, the company is considering replacing a component part that has a cost of $2.50 with a new and better part costing $4.50 per unit in the coming year. A new machine also would be needed to increase plant capacity. The machine would cost $18,000 with a useful life of six years and no salvage value. The company uses straight-line depreciation on all plant assets. (Ignore income taxes). 1) What was Jupiter's break-even point in number of units last year?

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