CarryAll Company produces briefcases from leather, fabric, and synthetic materials in a single

production department. The basic product is a standard briefcase made from leather and lined with

fabric. CarryAll has a good reputation in the market because the standard briefcase is a high-quality item that has been produced for many years. Last year, the company decided to expand its product line and produce specialty briefcases for special orders. These briefcases differ from the standard in that they vary in size, contain both leather and synthetic materials, and are imprinted with the buyers logo (the standard briefcase is simply imprinted with the CarryAll name in small letters). The decision to use some synthetic materials in the briefcase was made to hold down the materials cost. To reduce the labor costs per unit, most of the cutting and stitching on the specialty briefcases is done by automated machines, which are used to a much lesser degree in the production of the standard briefcases. Because of these changes in the design and production of the specialty briefcases, CarryAll management believed that they would cost less to produce than the standard briefcases. However, because they are specialty items, they were priced slightly higher; standards are priced at $30 and specialty briefcases at $32. After reviewing last months results of operations, CarryAlls president became concerned about the profitability of the two product lines because the standard briefcase showed a loss while the specialty briefcase showed a greater profit margin than expected. The president is wondering whether the company should drop the standard briefcase and focus entirely on specialty items. Units and cost data for last months operations as reported to the president are as follows:

		Standard	Specialty
Units produced		10,000	2,500
Direct Materials
Leather		15	7.5
Fabric		5	5
Synthetic			5
Total Materials		20	17.5
Direct Labor		6	3
Manufactoring Overhead		4.49	2.25
Cost per Unit		30.49	22.75

Factory overhead is applied on the basis of direct labor hours. The rate of $8.98 per direct labor

hour was calculated by dividing the total overhead ($50,500) by the direct labor hours (5,625). As shown in the table, the cost of a standard briefcase is $0.49 higher than its $30 sales price; the specialty briefcase has a cost of only $22.75, for a gross profit per unit of $9.25. The problem with these costs is that they do not accurately reflect the activities involved in manufacturing each product. Determining the costs using ABC should provide better product costing data to help gauge the actual profitability of each product line. The manufacturing overhead costs must be analyzed to determine the activities driving the costs. Assume that the following costs and cost drivers have been identified: The Purchasing Departments cost is $6,000. The major activity driving these costs is the number of purchase orders processed. During the month, the Purchasing Department prepared the following number of purchase orders for the materials indicated:

Leather	20
Fabric	30
Synthetic material	50

The cost of receiving and inspecting materials is $7,500. These costs are driven by the number

of deliveries. During the month, the following number of deliveries were made:

Leather	30
Fabric	40
Synthetic material	80

Production line setup cost is $10,000. Setup activities involve changing the machines to produce

the different types of briefcases. Each setup for production of the standard briefcases requires one hour; each setup for specialty briefcases requires two hours. Standard briefcases are produced in batches of 200, and specialty briefcases are produced in batches of 25. During the last month, there were 50 setups for the standard item and 100 setups for the specialty item. The cost of inspecting nished goods is $8,000. All briefcases are inspected to ensure that quality standards are met. However, the nal inspection of standard briefcases takes very little time because the employees identify and correct quality problems as they do the hand cutting and stitching. A survey of the personnel responsible for inspecting the nal products showed that 150 hours were spent on standard briefcases and 250 hours on specialty briefcases during the month. Equipment-related costs are $6,000. Equipment-related costs include repairs, depreciation, and utilities. Management has determined that a logical basis for assigning these costs to products is machine hours. A standard briefcase requires 1/2 hour of machine time, and a specialty briefcase requires two hours. Thus, during the last month, 5,000 hours of machine time relate to the standard line and 5,000 hours relate to the specialty line. Plant-related costs are $13,000. These costs include property taxes, insurance, administration, and others. For the purpose of determining average unit costs, they are to be assigned to products using machine hour

Question: Discuss in a paragraph the merits of activity-based management as it relates to CarryAlls ABC cost system?