Alpha Pty Ltd is a privately held furniture manufacturing company. For September 2018, Alpha had the following standards for one of its products, a wicker chair: Standards per Chair Direct materials 2 square yards of input at $5 per square yard Direct manufacturing labor 0.5 hour of input at $10 per hour The following data were compiled regarding actual performance: actual output units (chairs) produced, 2000; square yards of input purchased and used, 3,700; price per square yard $5.10; direct manufacturing labor costs, $8,820; actual hours of input, 900; labor price per hour, $9.80.

a) Show computations of price and efficiency variances for direct materials. Price variance Efficiency variance Flexible budget variance

b) Give plausible explanations of why each variance occurred