Hartman Company's Lucas plant manufactures thermostatic controls. Plant management has experienced fluctuating monthly overhead costs and wants to estimate overhead costs accurately to plan its operations and its financial needs. Interviews with plant personnel and studies reported in trade publications suggest that overhead in this industry tends to vary with labor-hours. A member of the controller's staff proposed that the behavior pattern of these overhead costs be determined to improve cost estimation. Another staff member suggested that a good starting place for determining cost behavior patterns is to analyze historical data. Following this suggestion, monthly data were gathered on labor-hours and overhead costs for the past two years. No major changes in operations occurred over this period of time. The data are shown in the following table. Overhead Costs Month Labor-Hours 1 251,590 $2,741,420 2 238,490 2,375,330 3 192,800 2,400,250 4 271,400 2,590,810 5 323,900 3,071,920 6 290,990. 2,618,270) 7 271,400 2,480,340 8 251,610 2,745,660 9 231,950 2,821,450 10 343,550 3,437,810 11 185,990 2,252,440 12 231,940 2,550,780 13 382,860 3,603,820 14 376,400 3,404,890. 15 290,980 3,016,600 16 395,990 3,638,440 17 356,610 3,554,000 18 323,8101 3,191,720 19 389,435 3,481,8201 20 317,240 3,219,620 21 343,500 3,495,530 22 336,930 3,207,360 23 382,870 3,600,730 24 376,310 3,636,750