Howard Rockness was worried. His company, Rockness Bottling, showed declining profits over the past several years despite an increase in revenues. With profits declining and revenues increasing, Rockness knew there must be a problem with costs. Rockness sent an e-mail to his executive team under the subject heading, "How do we get Rockness Bottling back on track?" Meeting in Rockness's spacious office, the team began brainstorming solutions to the declining profits problem. Some members of the team wanted to add products. (These were marketing people.) Some wanted to fire the least efficient workers. (These were finance people.) Some wanted to empower the workers. (These people worked in the human resources department.) And some people wanted to install a new computer system. (It should be obvious who these people were.) Rockness listened patiently. When all participants had made their cases, Rockness said, "We made money when we were a smaller, simpler company. We have grown, added new product lines, and added new products to old product lines. Now we are going downhill. What's wrong with this picture?" Rockness continued, "Here, look at this report. This is last month's report on the cola bottling line. What do you see here?" He handed copies of the following report to the people assembled in his office. Monthly Report on Cola Bottling Line Sales Diet $75,000 Regular $60,000 Cherry $13,950 Grape $1,650 Total $150,600 Less: Materials 25,000 20,000 4,680 550 Direct labor 10,000 8,000 1,800 200 50,230 20,000 Fringe benefits on 4,000 3,200 720 80 8,000 direct labor Indirect costs (@260% 26,000 20,800 4,680 520 52,000 of direct labor) Gross margin $10,000 $ 8,000 $ 2,070 $ 300 $ 20,370 Return on sales (see 13.38 13.3% 14.88 18.28 13.5% note [a]) Volume 50,000 40,000 9,000 1,000 Unit price $ 1.50 $ 1.50 $ 1.55 $ 1.65 $ 100,000 1.506 Unit cost $ 1.30 $ 1.30 $ 1.32 $ 1.35 $ 1.302 a Return on sales before considering selling, general and administrative expenses. Rockness asked, "Do you see any problems here? Should we drop any of these products? Should we reprice any of these products?" The room was silent for a moment, and then everybody started talking at once. Nobody could see any problems based on the data in the report, but they all made suggestions to Rockness ranging from "add another cola product" to "cut costs across the board" to "we need a new computer system so that managers can get this information more quickly." A not-so-patient Rockness stopped the discussion abruptly and adjourned the meeting. He then turned to the quietest person in the room-his son, Rocky-and said, "I am suspicious of these cost data, Rocky. Here we are assigning indirect costs to these products using a 260 percent rate. I really wonder whether that rate is accurate for all products. I want you to dig into the indirect cost data, figure out what drives those costs, and see whether you can give me more accurate cost numbers for these products." Rocky first learned from production that the process required four activities: (1) setting up production runs, (2) managing production runs, and (3) managing products. The fourth activity did not require labor; it was simply the operation of machinery. Next, he went to the accounting records to get a breakdown of indirect costs. Here is what he found: Indirect labor $20,000 Fringe benefits on 8,000 indirect labor Information technology 10,000 Machinery depreciation 8,000 Machinery maintenance 4,000 Energy 2,000 Total $52,000