Carrie Lee, the president of Lee Enterprises, was concerned about the results of her company’s new quality control efforts. “Maybe the emphasis we’ve placed on upgrading our quality control system will pay off in the long run, but it doesn’t seem to be helping us much right now. I thought improved quality would give a real boost to sales, but sales have remained flat at about $10,000,000 for the last 2 years.” Lee Enterprises has seen its market share decline in recent years because of increased foreign competition. An intensive effort to strengthen the quality control system was initiated a year ago (on January 1, 2023) in the hope that better quality would strengthen the company’s competitive position and reduce warranty and servicing costs. The following costs (in thousands) relate to quality and quality control over the last 2 years:

Required

1. Prepare a spreadsheet that produces a COQ report for both 2022 and 2023. For each individual cost, for each of the four category totals, and for total COQ spending, calculate (to 2 decimal places, e.g., 42.884% = 42.88%) the percentage change from 2022 to 2023.

2. Use your spreadsheet to prepare a histogram showing total COQ spending and spending by COQ category. 

3. Prepare a written evaluation to accompany the reports you have prepared in requirements 1 and 2. This evaluation should discuss the distribution of quality costs in the company, changes in this distribution that you detect have taken place over the last year, and any other information you believe would be useful to management. 

4. A member of the management team believes that employees will be more conscientious in their work if they are held responsible for mistakes. He suggests that workers should do rework on their own time and that they also should pay for disposal of defective units and the cost of scrap. The proposal estimates that the firm can save another $400,000 in quality costs and the employees are less likely to make as many errors. Should the firm implement the proposal? Why or why not?

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Warranty repairs Rework labor Supplies used in testing Depreciation of testing equipment Warranty replacements Field servicing Inspection Systems development Disposal of defective products Net cost of scrap Product recalls Product testing Statistical process control (SPC) Quality engineering 2022 $420 140 4 22 60 180 76 64 54 86 340 98 56 2023 $140 200 6 34 18 120 120 106 76 124 82 160 74 80