Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 Would you recommend that the T-bone steaks be sold as initially cut or processed further? T-bone steaks should be processed further. OT-bone steaks should be sold as initially cut. < Required 1 Required 2 > Birch Company normally produces and sells 40,000 units of RG-6 each month. The selling price is $30 per unit, variable costs are $10 per unit, fixed manufacturing overhead costs total $195,000 per month, and fixed selling costs total $42,000 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 10,000 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 $41,000 per month and its fixed selling costs by 10%. Start-up costs at the end of the shutdown period would total $13,000. 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? Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 Required 3 What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) if Birch closes its own plant for two months? Financial (disadvantage) < Required 1 Required 2 > Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 Required 3 Should Birch close the plant for two months? O Yes No < Required 1 Required 3 > Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 Required 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? Unit sales required for Birch to be indifferent < Required 2 Required 3 (Prepared from a situation suggested by Professor John W. Hardy.) Lone Star Meat Packers is a major processor of beef and other meat products. The company has a large amount of T-bone steak on hand, and it is trying to decide whether to sell the T-bone steaks as they are initially cut or to process them further into filet mignon and the New York cut. If the T-bone steaks are sold as initially cut, the company figures that a 1-pound T-bone steak would yield the following profit: Selling price ($2.00 per pound) Less joint costs incurred up to the split-off point where T-bone steak can be identified as a separate product Profit per pound $ 2.00 1.50 $ 0.50 If the company were to further process the T-bone steaks, then cutting one side of a T-bone steak provides the filet mignon and cutting the other side provides the New York cut. One 16-ounce T-bone steak cut in this way will yield one 6-ounce filet mignon and one 8-ounce New York cut; the remaining ounces are waste. It costs $0.15 to further process one T-bone steak into the filet mignon and New York cuts. The filet mignon can be sold for $4.00 per pound, and the New York cut can be sold for $3.60 per pound. Required: 1. What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) of further processing one T-bone steak into filet mignon and New York cut steaks? 2. Would you recommend that the T-bone steaks be sold as initially cut or processed further? Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Required 1 Required 2 What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) of further processing one T-bone steak into filet mignon and New York cut steaks? (Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your answer to 2 decimal places.) Financial (disadvantage) per unit < Required 1 Required 2 >