Salem Electronics currently produces two products: a programmable calculator and a tape recorder. A recent marketing study indicated that consumers would react favorably to a radio with the Salem brand name. Owner Kenneth Booth was interested in the possibility.

Before any commitment was made, however, Kenneth wanted to know what the incremental fixed costs would be and how many radios must be sold to cover these costs.

In response, Betty Johnson, the marketing manager, gathered data for the current products to help in projecting overhead costs for the new product. The overhead costs based on 30,000 direct labor hours follow. (The high-low method using direct labor hours as the independent variable was used to determine the fixed and variable costs.)

Betty was told that a plantwide overhead rate was used to assign overhead costs based on direct labor hours. She was also informed by engineering that if 20,000 radios were produced and sold (her projection based on her marketing study), they would have the same activity data as the recorders (use the same direct labor hours, machine hours, setups, and so on).
Engineering also provided the following additional estimates for the proposed product line:

Upon receiving these estimates, Betty did some quick calculations and became quite excited. With a selling price of $26 and just $18,000 of additional fixed costs, only 4,500 units had to be sold to break even. Since Betty was confident that 20,000 units could be sold, she was prepared to strongly recommend the new product line.
Required:
1. Reproduce Betty’s break-even calculation using conventional cost assignments.
How much additional profit would be expected under this scenario, assuming that 20,000 radios are sold?
2. Use an activity-based costing approach, and calculate the break-even point and the incremental profit that would be earned on sales of 20,000 units.
3. Explain why the CVP analysis done in Requirement 2 is more accurate than the analysis done in Requirement 1. What recommendation would you make?LO1

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Fixed Variable Materials handling $ $18,000 Power 22,000 Engineering 100,000 Machine costs 30,000* 80,000 Inspection 40,000 Setups 60,000 *All depreciation.