At a recent seminar you attended, the invited speaker was discussing some of .....

At a recent seminar you attended, the invited speaker was discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of standard costs in terms of evaluating performance and motivating goal-congruent behavior on the part of employees. One criticism of standard costs in particular caught your attention: The use of conventional standard costs may not provide appropriate incentives for improvements needed to compete effectively with worldclass organizations. The speaker then discussed socalled continuousimprovement standard costs. Such standards embody systematically lower costs over time. For example, on a monthly basis, it might be appropriate to budget a 1.0% reduction in perunit direct labor cost. Assume that the standard wage rate into the foreseeable future is $29 per hour. Assume, too, that the budgeted laborhour standard for October ofthe current year is 1.60 hours and that this standard is reduced each month by 5%. During December of the current year the company produced 9,800 units of XL-'lO, using 15,300 direct labor hours. The actual wage rate per hour in December was $33.00. Required: 1. Prepare a table that contains the standard labor-hour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months, October through January. 2. Compute the direct labor efciency variance for December. Was this variance favorable {F} or unfavorable [U]? Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 Prepare a table that contains the standard laborhour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months, October through January. {Do not round intermediate calculations. Use rounded answers in the subsequent requirement. Round your "Standard Direct Labor CostJ'Unit' answers to 2 decimal places and "Standard LaborHour Requirementg'Unit\" answers to 5 decimal places.) Show less; \"we... -_ At a recent seminar you attended, the invited speaker was discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of standard costs in terms of evaluating performance and motivating goalcongment behavior on the part of employees. One criticism of standard costs in particular caught your attention: The use of conventional standard costs may not provide appropriate incentives for improvements needed to compete effectively with world~class organizations. The speaker then discussed socalled continuousimprovement standard costs. Such standards embody systematically lower costs over time. For example, on a morlthly basis, it might be appropriate to budget a 1.0% reduction in perunit direct labor cost. Assume that the standard wage rate into the foreseeable future is $29 per hour. Assume, too, that the budgeted laborhour standard for October of the current year is 1.60 hours and that this standard is reduced each month by 5%. During December of the current year the company produced 9,800 units of XL-'iO, using 15,300 direct labor hours. The actual wage rate per hour in December was $33.00. Required: 1. Prepare a table that contains the standard laborhour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months. October through January. 2. Compute the direct labor efciency variance for December. Was this variance favorable (F) or unfavorable {U}? Complete this question by entering your answers in the labs below. Required 1 Required 2 Compute the direct lab-or efcienqr variance for December. lWas this variance favorable (F) or unfavorable {U}? (Round your nal answer to nearest whole dollar amount.) ::l