Chapter 25: Q25-19RQ (page 1406)
What questions should managers answer when facing constraints?
Short Answer
Answer
A manager requires determining the type of constraint and carrying out the maximum possible exploitation of the constraint.
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Chapter 25: Q25-19RQ (page 1406)
What questions should managers answer when facing constraints?
Answer
A manager requires determining the type of constraint and carrying out the maximum possible exploitation of the constraint.
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Refer to details about Skiable Acres from Short Exercise S25-2. Assume that Skiable Acres’s reputation has diminished and other resorts in the vicinity are charging only \(85 per lift ticket. Skiable Acres has become a price-taker and will not be able to charge more than its competitors. At the market price, Skiable Acres managers believe they will still serve 725,000 skiers and snowboarders each season.
Requirements
1. If Skiable Acres cannot reduce its costs, what profit will it earn? State your answer in dollars and as a percent of assets. Will investors be happy with the profit level?
2. Assume Skiable Acres has found ways to cut its fixed costs to \)30,000,000. What is its new target variable cost per skier/snowboarder?
Brik, located in San Antonio, Texas, produces two lines of electric toothbrushes: deluxe and standard. Because Brik can sell all the toothbrushes it can produce, the owners are expanding the plant. They are deciding which product line to emphasize. To make this decision, they assemble the following data:
Per Unit
Deluxe Toothbrush Standard Toothbrush
Sales price \(88 \)54
Variable expense 22 18
Contribution margin \(66 \)36
Contribution margin ratio 75.0% 66.7%
After expansion, the factory will have a production capacity of 4,900 machine hours per month. The plant can manufacture 65 standard electric toothbrushes or 27 deluxe electric toothbrushes per machine hour.
Requirements
1. Identify the constraining factor for Brik.
2. Prepare an analysis to show which product line the company should emphasize.
Newtown Sunglasses sell for about \(154 per pair. Suppose that the company incurs the following average costs per pair:
Direct materials \)39
Direct labor 15
Variable manufacturing overhead 6
Variable selling expenses 3
Fixed manufacturing overhead 20*
Total cost \(83
* \)2,050,000 Total fixed manufacturing overhead / 102,500 Pairs of sunglasses
Newtown has enough idle capacity to accept a one-time-only special order from Water Shades for 17,000 pairs of sunglasses at \(80 per pair. Newtown will not incur any variable selling expenses for the order.
Requirements
1. How would accepting the order affect Newtown’s operating income? In addition to the special order’s effect on profits, what other (longer-term qualitative) factors should Newtown’s managers consider in deciding whether to accept the order?
2. Newtown’s marketing manager, Peter Kyler, argues against accepting the special order because the offer price of \)80 is less than Newtown’s $83 cost to make the sunglasses. Kyler asks you, as one of Newtown’s staff accountants, to explain whether his analysis is correct. What would you say?
Mary Tan is the controller for Duck Associates, a property management company in Portland, Oregon. Each year, Tan and payroll clerk Toby Stock meet with the external auditors about payroll accounting. This year, the auditors suggest that Tan consider outsourcing Duck Associates’s payroll accounting to a company specializing in payroll processing services. This would allow Tan and her staff to focus on their primary responsibility: accounting for the properties under management. At present, payroll requires 1.5 employee positions—payroll clerk Toby Stock and a bookkeeper who spends half her time entering payroll data in the system.
Tan considers this suggestion, and she lists the following items relating to outsourcing payroll accounting:
The current payroll software that was purchased for \(4,000 three years ago would not be needed if payroll processing were outsourced.
Duck Associates’ bookkeeper would spend half her time preparing the weekly payroll input form that is given to the payroll processing service. She is paid \)450 per week.
Duck Associates would no longer need payroll clerk Toby Stock, whose annual salary is \(42,000.
The payroll processing service would charge \)2,000 per month.
Requirements
1. Would outsourcing the payroll function increase or decrease Duck Associates’ operating income?
2. Tan believes that outsourcing payroll would simplify her job, but she does not like the prospect of having to lay off Stock, who has become a close personal friend. She does not believe there is another position available for Stock at his current salary. Can you think of other factors that might support keeping Stock, rather than outsourcing payroll processing? How should each of the factors affect Tan’s decision if she wants to do what is best for Duck Associates and act ethically?
Grimm Company makes decorative wedding cakes. The company is considering buying the cakes rather than baking them, which will allow it to concentrate on decorating. The company averages 100 wedding cakes per year and incurs the following costs from baking wedding cakes:
Direct materials \(500
Direct labor 1,000
Variable manufacturing overhead 200
Fixed manufacturing overhead 1,200
Total manufacturing cost \)2,900
Number of cakes ÷ 100
Cost per cake \(29
Fixed costs are primarily the depreciation on kitchen equipment such as ovens and mixers. Grimm expects to retain the equipment. Grimm can buy the cakes for \)25.
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