Make an appointment to meet with the manager of an auto repair shop that uses standards. In most cases, this would be an auto repair shop that is affiliated with a chain, such as Petro-Canada or Canadian Tire, or the service department of a new-car dealer.

Required:

At the scheduled meeting, find out the answers to the following questions and write a memo to your instructor describing the information obtained during your meeting.

1. How are standards set?

2. Are standards practical or ideal?

3. Is the actual time taken to complete a task compared with the standard time?

4. What are the consequences of unfavourable variances? Of favourable variances?

5. Do the standards and variances create any potential problems?