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Mercury, Inc., produces cell phones at its plant in Texas. In recent years, the companys market share has been eroded by stiff competition from overseas.

Mercury, Inc., produces cell phones at its plant in Texas. In recent years, the companys market share has been eroded by stiff competition from overseas. Price and product quality are the two key areas in which companies compete in this market.

A year ago, the companys cell phones had been ranked low in product quality in a consumer survey. Shocked by this result, Jorge Gomez, Mercurys president, initiated an intense effort to improve product quality. Gomez set up a task force to implement a formal quality improvement program. Included on this task force were representatives from the Engineering, Marketing, Customer Service, Production, and Accounting departments. The broad representation was needed because Gomez believed that this was a companywide program and that all employees should share the responsibility for its success.

After the first meeting of the task force, Holly Elsoe, manager of the Marketing Department, asked John Tran, production manager, what he thought of the proposed program. Tran replied, I have reservations. Quality is too abstract to be attaching costs to it and then to be holding you and me responsible for cost improvements. I like to work with goals that I can see and count! Im nervous about having my annual bonus based on a decrease in quality costs; there are too many variables that we have no control over.

Mercurys quality improvement program has now been in operation for one year. The companys most recent quality cost report is shown below.

Mercury, Inc.
Quality Cost Report
(in thousands)
Last Year This Year
Prevention costs:
Machine maintenance $ 330 $ 130
Training suppliers 5 20
Quality circles 25 90
Total prevention cost 360 240
Appraisal costs:
Incoming inspection 45 24
Final testing 160 80
Total appraisal cost 205 104
Internal failure costs:
Rework 120 62
Scrap 66 55
Total internal failure cost 186 117
External failure costs:
Warranty repairs 74 34
Customer returns 276 83
Total external failure cost 350 117
Total quality cost $ 1,101 $ 578
Total production cost $ 4,230 $ 4,630

As they were reviewing the report, Elsoe asked Tran what he now thought of the quality improvement program. Tran replied. Im relieved that the new quality improvement program hasnt hurt our bonuses, but the program has increased the workload in the Production Department. It is true that customer returns are way down, but the cell phones that were returned by customers to retail outlets were rarely sent back to us for rework.

Required:

1. Expand the companys quality cost report by showing the costs in both years as percentages of both total production cost and total quality cost. (Round your percentage answers to 1 decimal place (i.e 0.1234 should be entered as 12.3).)

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