Paul Lewin and his wife, Patti, established Crispy Chips in 1958. Over the past 40 years, the company has established distribution channels in 10 western states, with production facilities in Colorado, California, and Arizona. In 1980, Pauls son, Scott, took control of the business. By 2016, it was clear that the companys plants needed to gain better control over production costs to stay competitive. Scott hired a consultant to install a standard costing system. To help the consultant establish the necessary standards, Scott sent him the following memo:

To: Mark Robins, Certified Management Accountant

From: Scott Lewin, President, Crispy Chips

Subject: Description and Data Relating to the Production of Our Plain Potato Chips

Date: August 28, 2016

The manufacturing process for potato chips begins when the potatoes are placed into a large vat in which they are automatically washed. After washing, the potatoes flow directly to an automatic peeler. The peeled potatoes then pass by inspectors, who manually cut out deep eyes or other blemishes. After inspection, the potatoes are automatically sliced and are dropped into the cooking oil. The frying process is closely monitored by an employee. After the chips are cooked, they pass under a salting device and then pass by more inspectors, who sort out the unacceptable finished chips (those that are discolored or too small). The chips then continue on the conveyor belt to a bagging machine that bags them in one-pound bags. After bagging, the bags are placed in a box and shipped. The box holds 15 bags.

The raw potato pieces (eyes and blemishes), peelings, and rejected finished chips are sold to animal feed producers for $0.16 per pound. The company uses this revenue to reduce the cost of potatoes; we would like this reflected in the price standard relating to potatoes.

Crispy Chips purchases high-quality potatoes at a cost of $0.245 per pound. Each potato averages 4.25 ounces. Under efficient operating conditions, it takes four potatoes to produce one 16-ounce bag of plain chips. Although we label the bags as containing 16 ounces, we actually place 16.3 ounces in each bag. We plan to continue this policy to ensure customer satisfaction. In addition to potatoes, other raw materials are the cooking oil, salt, bags, and boxes. Cooking oil costs $0.04 per ounce, and we use 3.3 ounces of oil per bag of chips. The cost of salt is so small that we add it to overhead. Bags cost $0.11 each and boxes $0.52 each.

Our plant produces 8.8 million bags of chips per year. A recent engineering study revealed that we would need the following direct labor hours to produce this quantity if our plant operates at peak efficiency:

Raw potato inspection 3,200

Finished chip inspection 12,000

Frying monitor 6,300

Boxing 16,600

Machine operators 6,300

Im not sure that we can achieve the level of efficiency advocated by the study. In my opinion, the plant is operating efficiently for the level of output indicated if the hours allowed are about 10% higher.

The hourly labor rates agreed upon with the union are:

Raw potato inspectors $15.20

Finished chip inspectors 10.30

Frying monitor 14.00

Boxing 11.00

Machine operators 13.00

Overhead is applied on the basis of direct labor dollars. We have found that variable overhead averages about 116% of our direct labor cost. Our fixed overhead is budgeted at $1,135,216 for the coming year.

QUESTION:

A.Develop a standard cost sheet for Crispy Chips plain potato chips. Round all computations to four decimal places.

B. Suppose that the level of production was 8.8 million bags of potato chips for the year as planned. If 9.5 million pounds of potatoes were used, compute the materials usage variance for potatoes.

C. Discuss the benefits of a standard costing system for Crispy Chips.

D. Discuss the presidents concern about using the result of the engineering study to set the labor standards. What standard would you recommend?