Ol’ Salt Enterprises produces 1,000 sailboats per year. Although the company currently buys sails for the sailboats (one set of sails per boat), it is considering making sails in some space that it does not currently use. The company purchases each set of sails for $300. It could make the sails for variable costs of $250 per set, plus it would allocate $200,000 of fixed costs per year to the sail-making operation. However, this $200,000 is not a differential cost of making sails; it is part of the costs the company already incurs that it would allocate away from sailboat manufacture to sail making.
a. Prepare a differential analysis to show whether Ol’ Salt Enterprises should make or buy the sails. What should you recommend to management? Explain why the $200,000 fixed costs allocated to sail making is or is not relevant to the decision.
b. If Ol’ Salt buys the sails, then it would have unused factory space. Suppose Ol’ Salt received an opportunity to rent out this unused factory space for $80,000 per year.
Would that affect your recommendation in part a.?