Birch Company normally produces and sells 46,000 units of RG-6 each month. The selling price is $30 per unit, variable costs are $10 per unit, fixed manufacturing overhead costs total $170,000 per month, and fixed selling costs total $34,000 per month. Employment-contract strikes in the companies that purchase the bulk of the RG-6 units have caused Birch Company's sales to temporarily drop to only 11,000 units per month. Birch Company estimates that the strikes will last for two months, after which time sales of RG-6 should return to normal. Due to the current low level of sales, Birch Company is thinking about closing down its own plant during the strike, which would reduce its fixed manufacturing overhead costs by $42,000 per month and its fixed selling costs by 10%. Start-up costs at the end of the shutdown period would total $12,000. Because Birch Company uses Lean Production methods, no inventories are on hand. Required: 1. What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) if Birch closes its own plant for two months? 2. Should Birch close the plant for two months? 3. At what level of unit sales for the two-month period would Birch Company be indifferent between closing the plant or keeping it open? Troy Engines, Limited, manufactures a variety of engines for use in heavy equipment. The company has always produced all of the necessary parts for its engines, including all of the carburetors. An outside supplier has offered to sell one type of carburetor to Troy Engines, Limited, for a cost of $39 per unit. To evaluate this offer, Troy Engines, Limited, has gathered the following information relating to its own cost of producing the carburetor internally: Direct materials Direct labor Variable manufacturing overhead Fixed manufacturing overhead, traceable Fixed manufacturing overhead, allocated Total cost Per 21,000 Units Unit Per Year $ 18 11 3 $ 378,000 231,000 63,000 63,000 3 6 126,000 $ 41 $ 861,000 "One-third supervisory salaries; two-thirds depreciation of special equipment (no resale value). Required: 1. Assuming the company has no alternative use for the facilities that are now being used to produce the carburetors, what would be the financial advantage (disadvantage) of buying 21,000 carburetors from the outside supplier? 2. Should the outside supplier's offer be accepted? 3. Suppose that if the carburetors were purchased, Troy Engines, Limited, could use the freed capacity to launch a new product. The segment margin of the new product would be $210,000 per year. Given this new assumption, what would be the financial advantage (disadvantage) of buying 21,000 carburetors from the outside supplier? 4. Given the new assumption in requirement 3, should the outside supplier's offer be accepted? Imperial Jewelers manufactures and sells a gold bracelet for $401.00. The company's accounting system says that the unit product cost for this bracelet is $268.00 as shown below: Direct materials Direct labor Manufacturing overhead Unit product cost $ 140 88 40 $ 268 The members of a wedding party have approached Imperial Jewelers about buying 14 of these gold bracelets for the discounted price of $361.00 each. The members of the wedding party would like special filigree applied to the bracelets that would increase the direct materials cost per bracelet by $4. Imperial Jewelers would also have to buy a special tool for $458 to apply the filigree to the bracelets. The special tool would have no other use once the special order is completed. To analyze this special order opportunity, Imperial Jewelers has determined that most of its manufacturing overhead is fixed and unaffected by variations in how much jewelry is produced in any given period. However, $5.00 of the overhead is variable with respect to the number of bracelets produced. The company also believes that accepting this order would have no effect on its ability to produce and sell jewelry to other customers. Furthermore, the company could fulfill the wedding party's order using its existing manufacturing capacity. Required: 1. What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) of accepting the special order from the wedding party? 2. Should the company accept the special order