TufStuff, Incorporated, sells a wide range of drums, bins, boxes, and other containers that are used in the chemical industry. One of the companys products is a heavyduty corrosionresistant metal drum, called the WVD drum, used to store toxic wastes. Production is constrained by the capacity of an automated welding machine that is used to make precision welds. A total of hours of welding time is available annually on the machine. Because each drum requires hours of welding machine time, annual production is limited to drums. At present, the welding machine is used exclusively to make the WVD drums. The accounting department has provided the following financial data concerning the WVD drums:

Selling price per drum $

Cost per drum:

Direct materials $

Direct labor $ per hour

Manufacturing overhead

Selling and administrative expense

Margin per drum $

Management believes WVD drums could be sold each year if the company had sufficient manufacturing capacity. As an alternative to adding another welding machine, management has considered buying additional drums from an outside supplier. Harcor Industries, Incorporated, a supplier of quality products, would be able to provide up to WVDtype drums per year at a price of $ per drum, which TufStuff would resell to its customers at its normal selling price after appropriate relabeling.

Megan Flores, TufStuffs production manager, has suggested that the company could make better use of the welding machine by manufacturing bike frames, which would require only hours of welding machine time per frame and yet sell for far more than the drums. Megan believes that TufStuff could sell up to bike frames per year to bike manufacturers at a price of $ each. The accounting department has provided the following data concerning the proposed new product:

Bike Frames

Selling price per frame $

Cost per frame:

Direct materials $

Direct labor $ per hour

Manufacturing overhead

Selling and administrative expense

Margin per frame $

The bike frames could be produced with existing equipment and personnel. Manufacturing overhead is allocated to products on the basis of direct laborhours. Most of the manufacturing overhead consists of fixed common costs such as rent on the factory building, but some of it is variable. The variable manufacturing overhead has been estimated at $ per WVD drum and $ per bike frame. The variable manufacturing overhead cost would not be incurred on drums acquired from the outside supplier.

Selling and administrative expenses are allocated to products on the basis of revenues. Almost all of the selling and administrative expenses are fixed common costs, but it has been estimated that variable selling and administrative expenses amount to $ per WVD drum whether made or purchased and would be $ per bike frame.

All of the companys employeesdirect and indirectare paid for full hour work weeks and the company has a policy of laying off workers only in major recessions.

As soon as your analysis was shown to the top management team at TufStuff, several managers got into an argument concerning how direct labor costs should be treated when making this decision. One manager argued that direct labor is always treated as a variable cost in textbooks and in practice and has always been considered a variable cost at TufStuff. After all, direct means you can directly trace the cost to products. If direct labor is not a variable cost, what is Another manager argued just as strenuously that direct labor should be considered a fixed cost at TufStuff. No one had been laid off in over a decade, and for all practical purposes, everyone at the plant is on a monthly salary. Everyone classified as direct labor works a regular hour workweek and overtime has not been necessary since the company adopted Lean Production techniques. Whether the welding machine is used to make drums or frames, the total payroll would be exactly the same. There is enough slack, in the form of idle time, to accommodate any increase in total direct labor time that the bike frames would require.

Required:

Would you be comfortable relying on the financial data provided by the accounting department for making decisions related to the WVD drums and bike frames?

Compute the contribution margin per unit. assume direct labor is a fixed cost

Compute the contribution margin per welding hour. assume direct labor is a fixed cost

Assuming direct labor is a fixed cost:

a Determine the number of WVD drums if any that should be purchased and the number of WVD drums andor bike frames if any that should be manufactured.

b What is the increase decrease in net operating income that would result from this plan over current operations?