Meroer Asbestos Removal company removes potentially asbestos insulation and related products from buildings. There has been a long-simmering dispute between the company's estimator and the work supervisors. The on-side supervisors claim that the estimates do not adequately distinguish between routine work such as removal of plaster in industrial buildings. The on-site supervisors believe that nonroutine work is far more expensive than routine work and should bear higher customer charges. The estimator sums up his position in this way: My job is to measure the area to be cleared of asbestos. As directed by top management, I simply multiply the square footage $ 2.80 to determine the bid price. Since our average cost is only $2.58 square foot, that leaves enough cushion take care of the additional costs of nonroutine work that shows up. Besides, it is difficult know what is routine or not routine until you actually start tearing things apart. To shed light on this controversy, the company initiated an activity-based costing study of all of its costs. Data from the activity-based costing system follow. Total cost Distribution of Resource Consumption Across Activities