Midwest Office Products Case Essay

Management should note that the level of activity was above what had been planned for the month. This led to an expected increase in profits of $1,100. However, the individual items on the report should not receive much management attention. The favorable variance for revenue and the unfavorable variances for expenses are entirely caused by the increase in activity.

“Companies can choose to use the accounting job order costing method when they have a single product line or numerous products to manufacture. However, it is less costly and less time-consuming if they elect to use process costing when calculating the manufacturing of a single product line. With similarities

NCB is a manufacturer and distributer of a wide range of office products. In Canada, NCB uses several distributers in different regions. One of the major distributers is Harrison Stationary and Office Supply LTD. Harrison had distributed NCB’S products for over 50 years and NCB was the largest supplier of Harrison. In January 2003 Harrison was acquired by the president of the company and four senior officers. Most of the acquisition cost was financed by bank loans. Since the acquisition, Harrison had difficulties to pay NCB for the goods and the account receivable reached to unacceptable level. In September 2005 the Harrison account was 156 days old and amounted to $ 4.4 million. In

Under an ABC system, the allocation of costs to products is achieved through at least four analytical steps. Firstly, costs are grouped into activity levels. Secondly, cost drivers are

Wilkerson employs a Normal Cost System, which means that they use predetermined overhead rates along with actual costs for direct material and direct labor. Normal costing systems are appropriate when overhead costs are a relatively small percentage of total manufacturing costs and product diversity is limited. For Wilkerson, normal costing does not make sense. Overhead costs make up over 50 percent of total manufacturing costs and their product offering is relatively more diverse. This indicates that the current accounting system in place may be distorting costs significantly. Supporting data:

Operating on very thin profit margins, players in the supermarket industry traditionally either focus on a premium segment or follow a discounter strategy at the low end. Premium players address educated and more price elastic consumers who value healthy, natural and organic food; the share of perishable items for these players is normally distinctly higher. Players that focus on a discounter strategy offer a higher share of simple necessity items and value price competitiveness over premium features like healthiness or organic origin. Independently of the focused customer group it is imperative for players in the supermarket industry to be cost efficient and optimize operations

This sourcing strategy report represents the result of our analysis of four potential suppliers both domestic and international in an attempt of the company to outsource many key product components and subassemblies, including the 9000x series DVD drives. The identified suppliers include:

One of the best aspects of the way the time-driven ABC system was put into place at Kemps was how efficiently and accurately management determined the main issues with the current cost system and responded with appropriate and relevant solutions. For example, one of the greatest problems the company was facing was that many of its operating costs were spread out equally over a customer base that was growing more diverse and demanding more personalized and varied service, effectively cutting or potentially eliminating entirely Kemps’ profit margins for a product. Therefore,

Industrial Equipment INC. sold and serviced a variety of industrial equipment and related products to hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, motels and various other organizations in the four Atlantic Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland/Labrador. In addition to distributing a broad line of specialized equipment IE provided design, specification and planning assistance to architects,

In using ABC overhead costs are distributed differently across the three products, but in total they are the same, in total. However, ABC changes the information that managers receive to make effective business decisions, which will ultimately result in improved business results.

The projected costs in 2004 (column 3) are calculated by dividing the actual costs for the first five months of 2004 (column 2) by the percent of 2003 costs that occurred in the first five months (column 1). For example, Atlanta’s actual 2004 costs of $40,228 divided by 2003’s 22.88% yields projected 2004 costs of approximately $175,822.

Under the original costing system used by Dakota Office Products, Customer A is shown to be slightly less profitable than Customer B. From the calculations above, we see that Customer A is slightly profitable at 0.3% profit as a percent of sales, and Customer B is not profitable, at a loss of (7.1%). We observe that Customer A is a consumer of low-cost services and generally pay their bills within 30 days unlike customer B who took 90 days or more. Timely servicing of debt led to profitability of Customer A.

2.   Mean service time = travel time + repair time = 1 + 1.5 = 2.5 hours

Staples is a comprehensive strategic management case that includes the company’s year-end 2010 financial statements, organizational chart, competitor information and more. The case time setting is the year 2011. Sufficient internal and external data are provided to enable students to evaluate current strategies and recommend a three-year strategic plan for the company. Headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, Staples’s common stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbol SPLS.

Businesses – from manufacturing, merchandising and service industries alike – take careful considerations for their costing systems. Setting-up competitive prices in the market can be a result of proper costing methods. Misallocation of costs may lead to incorrect price estimates, continuous production of unprofitable products, and ineffective processing schedules. In this case study, we will discuss the costing methods Zauner Ornaments are currently using and upon conclusion, it will enable us to distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of each costing method.