i need help with this Part 3: Develop a standard material cost for one unit of your product. Provide these details in the section called ?Bill of Materials?. Find material prices at stores or on the internet. Estimate if necessary. Develop an Operations Flow Document detailing the departments that this product must pass through in the manufacturing process. The operations flow can be described in narrative form or as a flowchart. Be sure to indicate whether you are using a job order, process, or hybrid costing system. Estimate the amount of time that each unit will remain in a particular department or process. Use a $15.00 labor rate. Develop a realistic Overhead Budget for your company. Assume that you can rent a small factory for $3000 per month. You must itemize the other overhead amounts that you should include (indirect materials, insurance on factory, indirect labor, etc). Estimate the number of units that you expect to produce and calculate a predetermined OH rate for use in your standard cost. You should end of up with a standard cost card per unit that details the direct materials (taken from your bill of materials) direct labor, and overhead cost per unit Using the standard cost from above, determine a selling price for your product. Be sure to check stores or the internet for selling prices of similar products. Now assume your other expenses (selling and administrative) represent an additional $50,000 per year. How many units must be sold to break-even per year?

Accounting - BAD2 - Group Project \"MIGHTY RAKE\" Leaf Rake Bad 2: Managerial Accounting Part One: Material Component Description/Prototype Detail/Target Markets Our product is a modification of an existing product called the EZ-Rake. It is essentially a rake and debris collection pan in one unit. Unlike the EZ-Rake, our product is made of sturdier materials and has a unique gripping handle feature. The EZ-Rake features a mechanism in the middle of the rake bar that requires the user to bend over and pull back with one hand, while holding the bar with the other hand. Our improved modification allows for ease of one hand gripping and no bending or stretching reaching the mechanism. It features more of a quick release than the current product. EZ-RAKE EZ-RAKE EZ-RAKE Easy Gripper Handle Style and Metal Tine Rake (Modifications for our prototype) As you can see, the EZ-Rake features a plastic rake with an aluminum handle. Our rake will be made of twenty-two metal tines, 6-inches in length each, that fan to a 24\" width. The pan of the EZ-Rake is also plastic. Ours will be made of a lightweight metal, allowing for more durability. Our hinges and hinge holders will be metal, which far exceeds the lasting ability of the EZ-Rake. We will use a 54\" wooden shaft that attaches to a gripping type handle. The handle will be made of metal with a padded rubber handle, similar to a dog scooper handle, per the image above. Our rake will be lightweight, yet very sturdy. The metal tines allow for more flexibility to collect leaves, branches, grass clippings, shrub clippings and soil without the fear of breaking the plastic tines of the EZ-Rake. The metal collection pan is much more durable and long lasting. Our handle will allow for less bending and back breaking where this chore is involved. The gripping style to collect the debris is much more effective at the top of the handle than it is in the middle of the handle, as it feels more like a hand \"grabbing\" the debris than the \"mop ringing\" style of the existing rake. It allows your free hand to guide the rake handle rather than having to hold the mid handle mechanism to release the debris into the waste can. Our target market is men of all ages that are responsible for yard work. Teens to seniors will be our core marketing group. But because of the lightweight benefit of our rake, women will also be a secondary market. This is a valuable, time-saving tool in the fall and early winter months. It is a wonderful tool to have for pruning, mowing and tidying up of yard, big or small during spring and summer. It will be affordable so that any income range can afford and appreciate this addition to their gardening tools. We will also target landscapers and larger landscaping companies, as this is an efficient, quieter and cleaner alternative to leaf blowers that simply move leaves from one location to another and don't allow for proper disposal of debris. We will focus on launching this idea with a print campaign in magazines such as Organic Gardening, Grow, Urban Gardening, Country Gardens, Backyard, Urban Farm, Fine Gardening, Heirloom Gardener, Herb Companion, Better Homes & Gardens and Country Living. We will offer this product at a wholesale level to major chains, such as Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Orchard Supply, and other major stores of this type. We will also sell this product at the retail level directly from our website. Stores such as Walmart, K-Mart and Target, that have an outdoor garden center, might be a secondary source after we target the hardware based stores. PART 2 Our first idea was a small rake that had a bendable handle so you could easily rake under shrubs. But then we extended the idea and decided to work on the design of a rake which would rake and then lift debris so as to minimize stooping and bending. We did find that other inventors had been working on perfecting such an invention for some years. We found one that would be especially successful, we thought, but we had ideas for improvement of the design to make is sturdier and easier to work with. In searching the US Patent Office website, I found six different rakes with patents that had been designed in similar but different ways to rake, grab debris, pick it up and deposit it elsewhere. They all are unique enough to earn a patent with the US Patent Office. From this collection of six I chose the three with the best and/or most useful design features. The first one is called \"Garden Tool for Collection and Removal of Debris.\" Basically it is one leaf type rake (as opposed to the rakes that have short rigid prongs) with the prongs going in both directions so that the rake can gather leaves and debris on one side. Then on the other side there is a shovel rake. That is what they call it, anyway. But it is pretty much like the first one except it has prongs going only towards the first rake. The two rakes are clamped together about half way up the handle so they can be used together to lift debris. It is basically a very simple version that needs a lot of manipulation from the user. Another version is called a \"Lawn and Garden Debris Scoop.\" I am surprised it was granted a patent as it does not seem like it would be a commercially successful invention. However, that the invention be commercially successful does not appear to be a requirement for issuance of a patent! This abstract reads in part: \"After raking or sweeping the debris into a pile, the user stands in front of the debris and attaches the hook/guide part of the scoop to their front pant pocket or belt.\" It is a very simple, but strange, invention. The third one we found is called a \"Gardening Rake with Improved Structure.\" This particular \"gizmo\" is somewhat complicated. It is closest in design to the EZ-Rake we also found. I was not able to find a patent for the EZ-Rake, but the advertisement said \"patent pending,\" so I guess it has not been issued a patent. The Garden Rake with Improved Structure would need to be rather well built from sturdy materials as it has gears, grip handle and a mechanism on the handle to move the two rake parts open and closed so as to grasp debris. There was another design I found for sale on the internet. They called it the \"Garden-Grabber-Lawn&-Garden-Rake.\" It was like the skeleton of a lamp shade on a stick and apparently can be used to rake. Then it will pull together the same way you can push a floor mop handle down to wring out a mop and pick up debris in the basket formed by pushing down on the handle. Unfortunately it has gotten poor reviews as it is rather breakable. The store selling it has discontinued sales. WE wanted a well-designed, sturdy, long-lasting product that would perform its designated functions well. I have included a copy of the three abstracts with illustrations. I think our invention compares very well with these other inventions. Abstracts from the US Patent Office Number 1: Patent number 5,901,540 Date of patent: May 11, 1999 A garden tool that includes a rake and a shovel rake for picking up and placing fallen leaves, twigs, branches, grass clippings, and other debris into a transport container such as a wheelbarrow, garbage bag, or trash can. The rake has prongs point in two directions so that the rake can gather leaves when in a raking position, but can also hold leaves against the shovel rake when in a placement or transport position. The prongs can each be carried on individual tines of the rake or can be carried in pairs, one prong facing in each direction. The handle of the shovel rake pivots on the handle of the rake so that it rests on top of the handle when the rake is used to collect leaves. After debris is gathered, the user places the shovel rake on one side of the leaves to be moved, swings the rake to the far side of the leaves to be moved, lowers the rake, and draws the rake toward the shovel rake. The user then picks up the shovel rake, the leaves being held in place by the rake as gravity acts on the rake. The handles of the rake and shovel rake are shaped so that they form a substantially circular handle over the contacting positions of their handles. Number 2: Patent number 7,909,377 B2 Date of patent: March 22, 2011 The lawn scoop is designed to make picking up any type of small, loose debris a cleaner and easier task for the user. In general terms, the device is a scoop type shovel with the addition of a multipurpose hook/guide at the top end of the handle. After raking or sweeping the debris into a pile, the user stands in front of the debris and attaches the hook/guide part of the scoop to their front pant pocket or belt. This keeps the scoop at the proper angle while enabling the user to use both hands to rake or sweep the debris onto the scoop. Then, aligning the handles of both the scoop and rake using the hook/guide, the user holds both handles together for lifting and disposal. The hook/guide is also designed as part of the hanging system which provides for convenient storage of the combination of scoop and rake/broom. Number 3: Patent number 6,983,584 B1 Date of Patent: Jan.10, 2006 A gardening rake includes a grip, extended poles and rake head, of which the extended poles are provided at one end of the grip. The rake heads are mounted at the end of the extended poles and constructed of several spaced talons. The talons of rake heads are designed with a T-shape. Based upon this modified structure, the double-headed rake heads can grab or rake off foreign materials via the clamping devices, thus offering an ease-of-use. Part 4 The Mighty Rake is an easy to use product that makes cleaning up yard debris easy to do with just one tool. Normally, this job takes a rake, leaf blower, scooper, and sometimes and extra set of hands. With the Mighty Rake, getting yard debris into a pile and in a trash can is easier than ever. Our product appears to be a normal rake but has a scoop attached to the end of it. It is out of the way while you rake, then once you are ready to put a pile in the trash you use the lever to open the scoop and clamp the pile with the scoop on one end and the rake head on the other. Some of the barriers to enter this market are that some people don't find the extra enhancement necessary, and that there have been other businesses that have made attempts at similar products. Consumers might prefer bending over to scoop up the leaves the old fashion way instead of buying our product which would hurt its marketability. One managerial accounting tool that would be important for our business would be the Theory of Constraints. We feel that we can produce enough, but we are worried that the demand won't match our supply. This is why we will effectively manage the constraint of demand by effectively marketing our product and having excellent customer service to help take out our opponents and attract consumers. Depending on how business goes we might consider a just-in-time production approach unless we find dealers that want us to continuously ship out big orders. Just-in-time production means products are only manufactured in to a customer's order and they are completed just-in-time to be shipped out. If we end up selling the product ourselves or only working with one or two department stores then we will most likely take this production approach. Another managerial accounting tool we want to use is a performance report. We want to make a budget with the only variable being order size and then compare our costs and profits to the actual results. Citations Page http://www.allyoucanread.com/top-10-garden-magazines/ http://www.ez-rake.com Vella, James A. 1999. Garden tool for collection and removal of debris. U.S. Patent 5,901,540, filed July 23, 1997, and issued May 11, 1999. Hopp, Keith E. 2011. Lawn and garden debris scoop. U.S. Patent 7,909,377 B2, filed March 8, 2009, and issued March 22, 2011. Huang, Yao-Chung and Chang Hua Hsien. Gardening rake with improved structure. U.S. Patent 6,983,584 B1, filed February 25, 2004, and issued January 10, 2006. \"Garden Grabber Lawn & Garden Rake.\" QVC.com. Customer reviews. n.d. web. 9 Dec.2014. http://www.qvc.com/Garden-Grabber-Lawn-&-Garden-Rake.product.M1233.html