Capital cost Essay

Q1. Bob Richards, the production manager of Zychol Chemicals, in Houston, Texas, is preparing his quarterly report, which is to include a productivity analysis for his department. One of the inputs is production data prepared by Sharon Walford, his operations analyst. The report, which she gave him this morning, showed the following: 2008 2009 Production (units) 4,500 6,000 Raw material used (barrels of petroleum by-products) 700 900 Labor hours 22,000 28,000 Capital cost applied to the department ($) $375,000 $620,000 Bob knew that his labor cost per hour had increased from an average of $13 per hour to an average of $14 per hour, primarily due to a move by management to become more competitive with a new company that had just opened a plant in the area. He also knew that his average cost per barrel of raw material had increased from $320 to $360. He was concerned about the accounting procedures that increased his capital cost from $375,000 to $620,000, but earlier discussions with his boss suggested that there was nothing that could be done about that allocation. Bob wondered if his productivity had increased at all. He called Sharon into the office and conveyed the above information to her and asked her to prepare this part of the report. Prepare the productivity part of the report for Mr. Richards. He probably expects some analysis of productivity inputs for all factors, as well as a multifactor analysis for both years with the change in productivity (up or down) and the amount noted. Management’s expectation for departments such as Mr. Richards’s is an annual productivity increase of 5%. Did he reach this goal? Q2. Samsang Manufacturing Inc., manufacturers DVD players for commercial use. Holland Samsang, president of Samsang Manufacturing Inc., is contemplating producing DVD players for home use. The activities necessary to build an experimental model and related data are given in the following table: Activity Normal time (weeks) Crash time (weeks) Normal cost ($) Crash cost ($) Immediate predecessor(s) A 3 2 1000 1600