SMAppB

Appendix B Profitability Analysis Solutions to Questions B-1 Absolute profitability measures the impact on overall profits of adding or dropping a particular segment, such as a product or customer, without making any other changes. B-2 Relative profitability involves ranking segments, each of which may be absolutely profitable, for the purpose of making trade-offs among the segments. Such trade-offs are necessary when a constraint exists. Otherwise, they are not necessary. B-3 Every business that seeks to maximize profits has a constraint. No business ever has had or ever will have infinite profits. Whatever prevents a business from attaining more profits is its constraint. The constraint might be a production constraint, it might be managerial time or talent, or it might be some internal policy that prevents the firm from progressing, but every profit-seeking organization faces at least one constraint. The same is true for almost all nonprofit organizations, which generally seek more of something—be it more health care, more land preserved from development, more art, or some other objective. B-4 The absolute profitability of a segment is measured by the difference between the incremental revenues from the segment and the incremental (avoidable) costs of the segment. Consequently, to measure absolute profitability, one would need the incremental revenues and costs of the segment. B-5 The relative profitability of a segment is measured by the profitability index, which is computed by dividing the incremental profit from the segment by the amount of the constrained resource required by the segment. Consequently, to measure relative profitability, one would need the incremental profit from the segment and the amount of the constrained resource required by the segment. B-6 A volume trade-off decision involves trading off units of one product for another. In such decisions fixed costs are usually irrelevant and the products can be ranked by dividing their unit contribution margins by the amount of the constrained resource required by one unit of the product. B-7 The selling price of a new product should at least cover its variable costs and opportunity costs. The opportunity costs can be determined by multiplying the opportunity cost per unit of the constrained resource by the amount of the constrained resource required by a unit of the new product. In addition, the selling price should cover any avoidable fixed costs of the product. Exactly how much of the avoidable fixed costs should be covered by each unit is difficult to determine a priori because the future unit sales volume of a product is not known with certainty. Exercise B-1 (30 minutes) 1. This exercise can be solved by first computing the profitability index of each new ride and then ranking the rides based on that profitability index: Net Present Value (A) Safety Engineer Time Required (B) Profitability Index (A) ÷ (B) Ride 1 $1,268,200 340 $3,730 Ride 2 $1,152,000 360 $3,200 Ride 3 $649,600 320 $2,030 Ride 4 $644,100 190 $3,390 Ride 5 $540,000 250 $2,160 Ride 6 $539,200 160 $3,370 Ride 7 $462,000 110 $4,200 Ride 8 $457,200 360 $1,270 Ride 9 $403,200 180 $2,240 Ride 10 $387,500 250 $1,550 Profitability Index Safety Engineer Time Required Cumulative Amount of Safety Engineer Time Required Ride 7 $4,200 110 110 Ride 1 $3,730 340 450 Ride 4 $3,390 190 640 Ride 6 $3,370 160 800 Ride 2 $3,200 360 1,160 Ride 9 $2,240 180 1,340 Ride 5 $2,160 250 1,590 Ride 3 $2,030 320 1,910 Ride 10 $1,550 250 2,160 Ride 8 $1,270 360 2,520 Given the 1,590 hours of safety engineer time available, the seven rides above the line in the above table should be built. Exercise B-1 (continued) 2. The total net present value for the seven new rides to be built is computed as follows: Ride 7 $  462,000 Ride 1 1,268,200 Ride 4 644,100 Ride 6 539,200 Ride 2 1,152,000 Ride 9 403,200 Ride 5     540,000 $5,008,700 Notes: Both the safety engineer’s time and the individual projects would have to be very carefully scheduled to make sure that all projects are completed on time. We have assumed that the 1,590 hours of available safety engineer time does not include hours that have been set aside as a buffer to provide protection from inevitable disruptions in the schedule. If the cumulative amount of safety engineer time required did not exactly consume the total amount of time available, some adjustment might be required in which projects are accepted to ensure that the best plan is selected. Exercise B-2 (30 minutes) 1. There is not enough capacity in the bottleneck operation to satisfy demand for all four products. The total amount of time available in the bottleneck operation is 1,800 hours, but 2,700 hours would be required to satisfy demand as shown below: Adirondack Lake Huron Oysterman Voyageur Total Annual demand in units (a) 80 120 100 140 Hours required in the bottleneck operation per unit (b) 5 4 7 8 Total hours required in the bottleneck operation (a) × (b) 400 480 700 1,120 2,700 2. The profitability index should be used to rank the products. Adirondack Lake Huron Oysterman Voyageur Unit contribution margin (a) $485 $268 $385 $600 Hours required in the bottleneck operation per unit (b) 5 4 7 8 Profitability index (a) ÷ (b) $97 $67 $55 $75 The most profitable use of the bottleneck operation (the constraint) is the Adirondack model, followed by the Voyageur model and then the Lake Huron and Oysterman models. Because no fixed costs would be affected by this decision, the optimal plan would be: Exercise B-2 (continued) Amount of constrained resource available 1,800 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 80 units of the Adirondack model   400 hours Remaining constrained resource available 1,400 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 140 units of the Voyageur model 1,120 hours Remaining constrained resource available 280 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 70 units of the Lake Huron model   280 hours Remaining constrained resource available      0 hours 3. The total contribution margin under the above plan would be $141,560: Adirondack Lake Huron Oysterman Voyageur Total Unit contribution margin (a) $485 $268 $385 $600 Optimal production plan (b) 80 70 0 140 Total contribution margin (a) × (b) $38,800 $18,760 $0 $84,000 $141,560 Exercise B-3 (10 minutes) The selling price of the new praline cappuccino product should at least cover its variable cost and its opportunity cost. The variable cost of the new product is $0.30 and its opportunity cost can be computed by multiplying the opportunity cost of $2.70 per minute of order filling time by the amount of time required to fill an order for the new product: Hence, the selling price of the new product should at least cover both its variable cost of $0.30 and its opportunity cost of $1.80, for a total of $2.10. Problem B-4 (30 minutes) 1. The constraint is customer representatives’ time and the incremental profit is revenues less cost of drugs sold and customer service costs. Leafcrest Pharmacy Providence Hospital Pharmacy Madison Clinic Pharmacy Jenkins Pharmacy Total revenues $272,650 $2,948,720 $1,454,880 $155,280 Cost of drugs sold 211,470 2,234,480 1,119,440 115,920 Customer service costs   10,640      74,400      42,000     4,480 Incremental profit (a) $ 50,540 $  639,840 $  293,440 $ 34,880 Customer representative time (b) 190 hours 1,240 hours 560 hours 80 hours Profitability index (a) ÷ (b) $266 per hour $516 per hour $524 per hour $436 per hour The Madison Clinic Pharmacy is the most profitable of the customers, followed by the Providence Hospital Pharmacy, the Jenkins Pharmacy, and lastly the Leafcrest Pharmacy. 2. The company could certainly afford to pay its customer representatives more in order to retain them. The company makes at least $266 in incremental profit per hour of customer representative time after taking into account their current wages and commissions. Another way of putting this is that losing (and failing to replace) a customer representative who works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks a year costs the company between $532,000 ($266 per hour × 2,000 hours per year) and $1,048,000 ($524 per hour × 2,000 hours per year) per year in lost profits. Problem B-5 (60 minutes) 1. There is not enough kiln capacity to satisfy demand for all four products. The total amount of time available is 2,000 hours, but 2,600 hours would be required to satisfy demand as shown below: Traditional Brick Textured Facing Cinder Block Roman Brick Total Annual demand in pallets (a) 90 110 100 120 Hours required in the drying kiln per pallet (b) 8 8 4 5 Total hours required in the drying kiln (a) × (b) 720 880 400 600 2,600 2. The profitability index should be used to rank the products. Traditional Brick Textured Facing Cinder Block Roman Brick Contribution margin per pallet (a) $472 $632 $376 $440 Hours required in drying kiln per pallet (b) 8 8 4 5 Profitability index (a) ÷ (b) $59 $79 $94 $88 The most profitable use of the bottleneck operation (the constraint) is the Cinder Block product, followed by the Roman Brick product and then the Textured Facing and Traditional Brick products. Because no fixed costs would be affected by this decision, the optimal plan would be: Problem B-5 (continued) Amount of constrained resource available 2,000 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 100 pallets of Cinder Block   400 hours Remaining constrained resource available 1,600 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 120 pallets of Roman Brick   600 hours Remaining constrained resource available 1,000 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 110 pallets of Textured Facing   880 hours Remaining constrained resource available 120 hours Less: Constrained resource required for production of 15 pallets of Traditional Brick   120 hours Remaining constrained resource available      0 hours 3. The total contribution margin under the above plan would be $167,000: Traditional Brick Textured Facing Cinder Block Roman Brick Total Contribution margin per pallet (a) $472 $632 $376 $440 Optimal production plan (b) 15 110 100 120 Total contribution margin (a) × (b) $7,080 $69,520 $37,600 $52,800 $167,000 4. The company should be willing to pay up to $59 per hour to operate the kiln until demand is satisfied for traditional bricks. Problem B-5 (continued) 5. The selling price for the new product should at least cover its variable cost and opportunity cost: 6. Salespersons who are paid a commission of 5% of gross revenues will naturally prefer to sell a customer a pallet of anything other than cinder blocks because they have the lowest gross revenues. However, given the company’s constraint, they are in fact the company’s most profitable product. The rankings of the products in terms of their gross sales and profitability indexes are given below: Traditional Brick Textured Facing Cinder Block Roman Brick Gross revenues per pallet $756 $1,356 $589 $857 Ranking based on gross revenues 3 1 4 2 Profitability index $59 $79 $94 $88 Ranking based on profitability index 4 3 1 2 To align the salespersons’ incentives with the interests of the company, the salespersons should be compensated based on the profitability index of the products sold or on the total contribution margin generated by the sales. Problem B-6 (45 minutes) 1. The relative profitability of segments should be measured by the profitability index as follows: However, the hospital measures profitability using the following ratio: The segment margin (i.e., revenue less fully allocated costs) should not be used in the numerator when measuring profitability because it does not represent the incremental profit from the segment. The incremental profit from a segment is its revenue less its avoidable costs. Fully allocated costs include avoidable costs plus other costs that are not avoidable, but are nevertheless allocated to the segment. These unavoidable costs are completely irrelevant when considering the profitability of a segment because they would be unaffected even if the segment were eliminated. Including unavoidable costs in the numerator of the profitability measure distorts the measure and may result in incorrect rankings of the segments. 2. It is appropriate to use the segment revenue in the denominator of the profitability measure only if total revenue is the organization’s constraint. In that case, the revenue of the segment would be the amount of the constrained resource used by the segment. Otherwise, segment revenue should not be used as the denominator when measuring the relative profitability of segments. When would total revenue be the organization’s constraint? In truth, it is difficult to imagine situations in which total revenue would be the constraint. One possibility is that the organization’s customers have a fixed total budget for spending on the organization’s products and services and the organization has excess productive capacity. In that case, total revenue would indeed be the organization’s constraint. However, this situation would rarely arise. Problem B-6 (continued) Other situations might arise in which total revenue is the organization’s constraint, but ordinarily the constraint would not be revenue. Instead, the constraint would be something like a particular production process or a critical input. Consequently, it is almost always the case that relative profitability should not be measured using segment revenues in the denominator. Problem B-7 (60 minutes) 1. This problem can be solved by first computing the profitability index of each customer and then ranking the customers based on that profitability index: Customer Incremental Profit (A) Regina’s Time Required (B) Profitability Index (A) ÷ (B) Afonso $195 5 $39 Carloni $259 7 $37 Cullins $105 3 $35 Frese $170 5 $34 Gerst $117 3 $39 Jelovich $124 4 $31 Klarr $192 6 $32 Melby $144 4 $36 Rideau $150 5 $30 Towner $256 8 $32 Customer Profitability Index Regina’s Time Required Cumulative Amount of Regina’s Time Required Afonso $39 5 5 Gerst $39 3 8 Carloni $37 7 15 Melby $36 4 19 Cullins $35 3 22 Frese $34 5 27 Klarr $32 6 33 Towner $32 8 41 Jelovich $31 4 45 Rideau $30 5 50 Given that Regina should not be asked to work more than 27 hours, the four customers below the line in the above table should be told that their reservations have to be cancelled. Problem B-7 (continued) 2. The total profit on wedding cakes for the weekend after canceling the four reservations would be: Afonso $195 Gerst 117 Carloni 259 Melby 144 Cullins 105 Frese  170 Total $990 Notes: Both Regina’s time and the cakes would have to be very carefully scheduled to make sure that all cakes are completed on time. We have assumed that the 27 hours of Regina’s time that are available for cake decorating do not include hours that have been set aside as a buffer to provide protection from inevitable disruptions in the schedule. If the cumulative amount of Regina’s time required for the cakes did not exactly consume the total amount of time available, some adjustment might be required in which reservations are cancelled to ensure that the most profitable plan is selected. 3. To avoid disappointing customers, reservations should probably not be accepted for any particular week after 27 hours of Regina’s time have been committed for that week’s cakes. To ensure that only the most profitable cake reservations are accepted, a reservation for any cake with a profitability index of less than $34 should probably not be accepted. This was the cutoff point for the cakes in the first week in June. This cutoff may need to be adjusted upward or downward over time—the cakes that were reserved for the first week in June may not be representative of the cakes that would be reserved for other weeks. If too many reservations are turned down and Regina’s time is not fully utilized, then the cutoff should be adjusted downward. If too few reservations are turned down and Regina’s time is once again overbooked or profitable cake orders are turned away, then the cutoff should be adjusted upward. Problem B-7 (continued) 4. Ms. Therau should consider changing the way prices are set so that they include a charge for Regina’s time. On average, the prices may be the same, but they should be based not only on the size of the cakes, but also on the amount of cake decorating that the customer desires. The charge for Regina’s time should be her hourly rate of pay (including any fringe benefits) plus the opportunity cost of at least $34 per hour. Because Regina will not be working more than 27 hours per week, if another cake reservation is accepted, some other cake reservation will have to be cancelled. Ms. Therau would have to give up at least $34 profit per hour to accept another cake reservation. 5. Making Regina happy involves not asking her to work more than 27 hours per week decorating cakes. Making customers happy involves not canceling their reservations, not raising prices, and providing top quality wedding cakes. Ms. Therau can accomplish both of these objectives and increase her profits by clever management of the constraint—Regina’s time. The possibilities include: Ms. Therau should make sure that none of Regina’s time is wasted on unnecessary tasks. For example, Regina should not be asked to cream butter by hand for frostings if a machine could do the job as well with less labor time. Ms. Therau should make sure that none of Regina’s time is wasted on tasks that can be done by other persons. For example, an assistant can be assigned to prepare frosting and to clean up, relieving Regina of those tasks. As long as the cost of the assistant’s time is less than $34 per hour, the result will be higher profits and more pleased customers. Ms. Therau should consider assigning an apprentice to Regina. The apprentice could relieve Regina of some of her workload while learning the skills to eventually expand the company’s cake decorating capacity. Ms. Therau might consider subcontracting some of the less demanding cake decorating to another baker. This would be profitable as long as the charge is less than $34 per hour. Case B-8 (45 minutes) Vectra’s management is not contemplating adding or dropping products; it simply wants to redirect salespersons’ efforts toward the more profitable products. Therefore, this is a volume trade-off decision and the appropriate way to measure profitability is with the profitability index: The unit contribution margin is the selling price of a product less sales commissions and the cost of sales, which is a variable cost in this company. The operating expenses are all fixed. The case states that management wants “to redirect the effort of salespersons towards the more profitable products.” Therefore, the constraint must be the effort of salespersons. Unfortunately, there is no direct measure of the amount of salespersons’ effort required to sell a unit of each product. However, all other things equal, if one product has twice the sales commission per unit as another, then we can expect salespersons to exert twice as much effort selling the first product. Effort is likely to be proportional to commissions. Therefore, given the limited amount of available information, the best measure of relative profitability for purposes of redirecting salespersons’ efforts would be: Case B-8 (continued) Note that this profitability index takes into account the salespersons’ natural inclinations to focus their efforts on the products with the highest sales commissions. Of course, it would be an even better idea to change the salespersons’ compensation scheme, but this alternative was ruled out in the case. © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2010. All rights reserved. 980 Managerial Accounting, 13th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 1 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2010. All rights reserved. 980 Managerial Accounting, 13th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 1 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2010. All rights reserved. 980 Managerial Accounting, 13th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 1 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 2 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 3 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 4 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 5 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 14 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 15 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 14 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 15 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 14 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 15 © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. 16 Managerial Accounting, 15th Edition © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. Solutions Manual, Profitability Analysis Appendix 17