Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Determine the number of WVD drums (if any) that should be purchased and the number of WVD drums and/or bike frames (if any) that should be manufactured. [Assume direct labor is a variable cost] Turstuff, Inc, sells a wide range of drums, bins, boxes, and other containers that are used in the chemical industry. One of the company's products is a heavy-duty corrosion-resistant metal drum, called the WVD drum, used to store toxic wastes. Production is constrained by the capacity of an automated welding machine that is used to make precision weids. A total of 2,120 hours of weiding time is available annually on the machine. Because each drum requires 0.4 hours of weiding machine time, annual production is limited to 5,300 drums. At present, the weiding machine is used exclusively to make the WVD drums. The accounting department has provided the following financial data concerning the WVD drums: Management belleves 6,150 WVD drums could be sold each year if the company had sufficient manufacturing capacity. As an alternative to adding another welding machine, management has considered buying additional drums from an outside supplier. Harcor Industries, Inc., a supplier of quality products, would be able to provide up to 4,300 WVD-type drums per year at a price of $156 per drum, which TufStuff would resell to its customers at its normal selling price after appropriate relabeling. Megan Flores, TufStuff's production manager, has suggested that the company could make better use of the weiding machine by manufacturing blke frames, which would require only 0.5 hours of welding machine time per frame and yet sell for far more than the drums. Megan believes that Turstuff could sell up to 1,720 bike frames per year to bike manufacturers at a price of $269 each. The accounting department has provided the following data concerning the proposed new product: The bike frames could be produced with existing equipment and personnel, Manufacturing overheod is allocated to products on the basis of direct labor-hours. Most of the manufacturing overhead consists of fixed common costs such as rent on the factory building. but some of it is variable. The variable manufacturing overhead has been estimated at $1.35 per WVD drum and $1.90 per bike frame. The varlable manufacturing overhead cost would not be incurred on drums acquired from the outside suppliet. Selling and administrative expenses are allocated to products on the basis of revenues. Almost all of the selling and administrative expenses are fixed common costs, but it has been estimated that variable selling and administrative expenses amount to $7.75 per WVD drum whether made or purchased and would be $1.90 per bike frame. All of the company's employees-direct and indirect-are paid for full 40 .00-hour work weeks and the company has a policy of laying off workers only in major recessions. As soon as your analysis was shown to the top management team at Turstuff, several managers got into on argument concerning how direct labor costs should be treated when making this decision. One manager argued that direct labor is always treated as a variable cost in textbooks and in practice and has always been considered o variable cost at Turstuff. After all, "direct" means you can directly thace the cost to products. "If direct labor is not a variable cost, what is?" Another manager argued just as strenuously that direct labor. should be considered a fixed cost at Turstuff, No one had been taid off in over a decade, and for all practical purposes, everyone at the plant is on a monthly salary. Everyone classified as direct labor works a regular 40.00-hour workweek and overtime has not been necessary since the company adopted Lean Production techniques. Whether the weiding machine is used to make drums or frames. the total payroll would be exactly the same. There is enough slack, in the form of idle time, to accommodate any increase in total direct labor time that the bike frames would require