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For the first time, the Commonwealth Blood Transfusion Service (CBTS) has to determine product costs for the output of its plasma fractionation center. The motivation for determining product costs is political in nature. Therefore, the CBTS has to find a way to report individual product costs despite the fact that they are joint products. Because of the political motivation, CBTS executives cannot argue that there is no meaningful way to allocate joint costs to products. The case provides students with an opportunity to identify several allocation procedures for determining joint costs and then use those procedures to determine product costs.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 191073

The company has excess capacity. The case explores the various issues surrounding accounting for the cost of capacity. Several definitions of capacity can be discussed and accounted for.

Queensferry Telecommunications Division has recently implemented an activity-based cost system. The case explores several issues. First, the role of variance analysis in an activity-based system. Second, the way to determine cost drive rates. Third, the evaluation of incremental business.

Bridgeton Industries was experiencing reduced sales. To become more competitive it introduced a classification procedure for products based upon their productivity and other factors. Products were classified into three groups: world class, potentially world class, and non-world class. The firm outsources the non-world class products. This outsourcing causes the costs on the remaining products to increase because some costs associated with the outsourced products did not go away. These residual costs caused more products to become non-world class and hence candidates for outsourcing. The firm has entered the death spiral.

Spreadsheet supplement to case 190-085.

Explores how a cost system can help support a firm's decision to change strategies. In the process, students are exposed to a simple activity-based cost system. Also examines Siemens policy for transferring products between sales and manufacturing divisions. Transfer pricing is based on standard costs generated from their cost system. The case is unique in that the organizational linkage between the product costing system and the transfer pricing system is explored.

A company needs reliable information on product costs. But sometimes it's difficult to know if a cost system is failing to deliver. It's time to redesign a cost system when, for instance, manufacturing managers want to drop products that seem to earn the biggest profits. Chances are those items are more troublesome than the cost system reflects. Also, when departments develop their own cost systems, it probably means the old one is no longer working properly. Sometimes changes in a company's product market strategy or competitive environment can render a cost system obsolete. When margins are paper thin, companies need more accurate costs than ever.

Explores how a cost system can help support a firm's decision to change strategies. In the process, the students are introduced to a simple activity-based cost system. Siemens Electric Motor Works found itself facing an increasingly competitive environment and so made a decision to move from mass production of specialty motors to the production of small lots of custom motors. In doing so, they found their old cost system led them to poor decision making. By switching to a simple activity-based system, more accurate product costs were computed, facilitating better divisional performance.

Explores the obsolescence of a cost system when technology changes. In particular, it asks students to increase the number of cost center and allocation bases. The firm moves from a one-center, direct labor-hour system to a three-center, direct labor-hour and machine-hour systems.

Explores the issues surrounding the determination of the product cost of a subassembly in a firm that has never had to determine subassembly costs. Asks students to change the cost system by adding allocation bases and developing a step-down allocation process.

Managers in companies selling multiple products are making strategic decisions about pricing and product mix with distorted cost information, detecting the problem only after their competitiveness and profitability have deteriorated. An alternative is activity-based costing. Virtually all of a company's activities exist to support the production and delivery of today's goods and services. Companies need not scrap their official cost systems to use activity-based methods. The two can exist simultaneously.

Provides the rationale behind the design of the new cost system.

Describes the new material-burdening system they have implemented and the cycle-time-burdening system they are proposing. Asks students to analyze the new cost system.

Schulze Waxed Containers has recently lost 20% of its business. The firm's cost accounting system spreads fixed costs over the volume produced. The 1987 costs reflect the lower production volume and are higher. The firm has recently adopted a minimum mark up. The result is increased minimum prices and lost business. The firm introduced a capacity-based cost system that identifies the cost of excess capacity. The case analyzes the design of this new cost system.

Mueller-Lehmkuhl sells apparel fasteners and rents attaching machines. It views these two products as effectively a single item and prices them accordingly, the fasteners at high profit and its attaching machines at a loss. The cost system allocates the cost of the attaching machines to the fasteners. The Japanese have entered the market and found a way to unbundle the two products. As a result they are challenging the European way of doing business. The case asks the student to analyze the true cost and profitability of the products.

Camelback Communications, Inc. has a poorly designed cost accounting system and is in the process of redesigning it. This case demonstrates how the old cost accounting system operated.

Mayers Tap, Inc. has decided to redesign its cost system. In this case it uses three different cost center designs to determine how the new system should be designed. Students are asked to drop unprofitable products under the three scenarios and explain the effects on the income statements. The teaching objectives are to demonstrate to students that the selection of cost centers is critical to the generation of accurate standard costs.

Mayers Tap, Inc. has a poorly designed cost accounting system and is in the process of redesigning it. This case provides background details for the rest of the Mayers Tap, Inc. series.

Mayers Tap, Inc. has decided to redesign its cost system. In this case, the budgeted costs have to be allocated to the machine level. The teaching objective is to demonstrate two-stage allocation and the sensitivity of cost data to allocation base selection.