HYC makes three products H, Y, and C. All three products must be offered for sale each month in order to able to provide a complete market service. The products are fragile and their quality deteriorates rapidly once they are manufactured. The products are produced on two types of machine and worked on by a single grade of direct labour. Five direct employees are paid $8 per hour for a guaranteed minimum of 160 hours each per month. All of the products are first moulded on a machine type 1 and then finished and sealed on a machine type 2. The machine hours requirements for each of the products are as follows.

Produce H Product Y Product C Hours per unit Hours per unit Hours per unit

Machine type 1 1.5 4.5 3.0 Machine type 2 1.0 2.5 2.0

The capacity of the available machine type 1 and 2 are 600 hours and 500 hours per month respectively. Details of the selling price, unit cost and monthly demand for the three products are as follows

Product H Product Y Product C $ per unit $ per unit $ per unit Selling price 91 174 140 Component cost 22 19 16 Other direct material cost 23 11 14 Direct labour cost at $8 per hour 6 48 36 Overheads 24 62 52 Profit 16 34 22

Maximum monthly demand units 120 70 60

Although HYC uses marginal costing and contribution analysis as the basis for it decision making activities, profits are reported in the monthly management accounts using the absorption costing basis. Finished goods inventories are valued in the monthly management accounts at full absorption cost.

Required

a. Calculate the machine utilization rate for each machine each month and explain which of the machine is the bottleneck/limiting factor b. Using the current system of marginal costing and contribution analysis, calculate the profit maximizing monthly output of the three products. c. Explain why throughput accounting might provide more relevant information in HYCs circumstances. d. Using a throughput approach, calculate the throughput-maximising monthly output of the three products e. Explain the throughput accounting approach to optimizing the level of inventory and its valuation. Contrast this approach to the current system employed by HYC.