The procurement process for Jarom Wholesale Company includes a series of activities that transforms a materials requisition into a vendor payment. The process begins with a request for materials. The requesting department prepares and sends a materials request form to the Purchasing Department. The Purchasing Department then places a request for a quote to vendors. Vendors prepare bids in response to the request for a quote. A vendor is selected based on the lowest bid. A purchase order to the low-bid vendor is prepared. The vendor delivers the materials to the company, whereupon a receiving ticket is prepared. Payment to the vendor is authorized if the materials request form, receiving ticket, and vendor invoice are in agreement. These three documents fail to agree 40% of the time, initiating effort to reconcile the differences. Once the three documents agree, a payment is made. The process can be diagrammed as follows:

An activity analysis indicated the following activity costs with this process:

Preparing materials request........................................................$ 32,000
Requesting, receiving, and selecting vendor bids........................92,000
Preparing purchase order...............................................................20,000
Preparing receiving ticket................................................................24,000
Matching M/R, R/T, and invoice......................................................52,000
Correcting reconciliation differences...........................................148,000
Preparing and delivering vendor payment....................................32,000
Total process activity cost............................................................$400,000

On average, the process handles 10,000 individual requests for materials that result in 10,000 individual payments to vendors.

Management proposes to improve this process in two ways. First, the Purchasing Department will develop a preapproved vendor list for which orders can be placed without a request for quote. It is expected that this will reduce the cost of requesting and receiving vendor bids by 75%. Second, additional training and standardization will be provided to reduce errors introduced into the materials requisition form and receiving tickets. It is expected that this will reduce the number of reconciliation differences from 40% to 10%, over an average of 10,000 payments.

a. Develop a table showing the percent of individual activity cost to the total process cost.

b. Determine the average total process cost per vendor payment, assuming 10,000 payments.

c. Prepare a table showing the improvements in the activity costs as a result of the changes proposed by management. Show columns of activity cost prior to improvement, after improvement, and savings.

d. Estimate the average cost per vendor payment, assuming that the changes proposed by management are enacted for 10,000 total payments.

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Requesting, Receiving, and Selecting Vendor Bids Preparing and Delivering Vendor Payment Matching M/R, R/T, and Vendor Invoice Preparing Materials Request (M/R) Preparing Purchase Order Preparing Receiving Ticket (R/T) Correcting Reconciliation Differences