Case Study: Williams Ltd

Williams Ltd manufactures iron gates to individual customers specifications. The company use the tender process to obtain work, where the company responds to an invitation to submit a competitive bid. Over the last few months, Williams Ltd. has been very quiet, and the managing director, Jack Jones, is concerned that the business will fail if it does not improve its success rate with tenders. The company has two production departments, Bending and Welding, and the production requirements for individual jobs can differ significantly. Some jobs require extensive bending with little welding; others require little bending with a lot of welding.

The following table describes the results of the five bids that the company submitted last month. The numbers in brackets after losses indicate where the company ranked in the bid process:

Job no.	Direct labour hours in Bending	Direct labour hours in Welding	Estimated direct labour hours	Overhead cost of bid	Won/lost
1	1,200	300	1,500	$4,125	Lost (5th)
2	300	1,200	1,500	$4,125	Won
3	1,400	100	1,500	$4,125	Lost (3rd)
4	100	1,400	1,500	$4,125	Won
5	750	750	1,500	$4,125	Lost (2nd)

The pattern of resource usage implied in the above table has persisted for several months. The company uses a pre-determined plant-wide overhead rate based on practical capacity, which is measured in direct labour hours. The budgeted overhead for the year for the Bending Department is $54,000 (including $18,000 fixed and $36,000 variable), and for the Welding Department it is $144,000 (including $36,000 fixed and $108,000 variable). Each department has a monthly practical capacity of 3 000 direct labour hours.

Required:

• • How the overhead cost of $4,125 is determined for each job?
  • A statement of the agreed analysis of the problem(s) resulting from the use of current overhead allocation approach.

  • Required: Refer to Part A Williams Ltd Case Study and answer the following:

  • Discuss an alternative bidding scheme that overcomes the current overhead allocation situation facing the firm, by proposing an alternative method of allocating manufacturing overheads. Support your analysis with calculations by showing the overheads cost bid for each job applying your alternative method. Your discussion part has a word limit of 150 words (excluding the calculations). (10 marks)
  • Explain how this alternative bidding scheme may improve its success rate with tenders. Your explanation should take into account the qualitative factors. Your discussion has a word limit of 300 words.