Maryville Manufacturing designs and builds custom mudroom storage benches. All of the mudroom storage benches are constructed with rustic hickory. Its budgeted manufacturing costs for the 2018 year are as follows.

Overhead Cost Pools	Amount
Purchasing	$ 45,000
Handling materials	50,000
Production (cutting, milling, finishing)	130,000
Setting up machines	85,000
Inspecting	60,000
Inventory control (raw materials and finished goods)	80,000
Utilities	100,000
Total budgeted overhead costs	$550,000

For the last 5 years, Maryville Manufacturing has been charging overhead to products on the basis of materials cost. For the year 2018, materials cost of $500,000 were budgeted.

Jim Johnson, owner-manager of Maryville Manufacturing, recently directed his accountant, Ledger Kaufman, to implement the activity-based costing system that he has repeatedly proposed. At Jims request, Ledger and the production foreman identify the following cost drivers and their usage for the previously budgeted overhead cost pools.

Overhead Cost Pools	Activity Cost Drivers	Expected Use of Cost Drivers
Purchasing	Number of orders	500
Handling materials	Number of moves	5,000
Production (cutting, milling, finishing)	Direct labor hours	65,000
Setting up machines	Number of setups	1,000
Inspecting	Number of inspections	4,000
Inventory control (raw materials and finished goods)	Number of components	40,000
Utilities	Square feet occupied	50,000

Doug Russell, sales manager, has received an order for 12 custom mudroom storage benches from Homes by Kathy. At Dougs request, Ledger prepares costs estimates for producing 12 mudroom storage benches so Doug can submit a contract price per mudroom storage bench to Homes by Kathy. He accumulates the following data for the production of 12 mudroom storage benches.

Direct materials	$5,200
Direct labor	$3,500
Direct labor hours	200
Number of purchase orders	3
Number of material moves	32
Number of machine setups	4
Number of inspections	20
Number of components	640
Number of square feet occupied	320

Required:

1. Prepare a formal memo addressed to the owner of the company that includes a recommendation related to the adoption of activity-based costing.