The luxury-goods manufacturer, Louis Vuitton, has several factories in the United States, France, and Spain that produce its bags and accessories. Part of the Louis Vuitton brand appeal to consumers is its exclusivity; its bags and accessories are not mass-marketed. Rather than growing the brand and losing the appeal of its exclusivity, Vuitton has been working to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing processes at its factories. Between the years of 2002 and 2012, Vuitton implemented the following changes at some of its locations:¹

Reorganization: Workers were reorganized into teams of about 10 arranged in U-shaped clusters. This reorganization freed up 10% more floor space and allowed Vuitton to hire 300 new people without adding another factory.

Robots: Robots were installed at Vuittons shoe factory in Italy. Prior to the robot installation, workers walked back and forth from the shelves to their workstations. The robots now retrieve the foot molds around which a shoe is made, resulting in significant time savings.

Software: Software was developed to help leather cutters identify the flaws in the leather being used to manufacture bags. The software determines where to place the pattern pieces for the dozens of pieces of leather in a bag, drastically reducing the amount of leather waste.

¹C. Passariello, At Vuitton, Growth in Small Batches, Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2011.

Questions

1. Before the company makes any changes to its standards, it must consider the impact of the manufacturing process changes on its variances. Indicate the impact of the changed process on each variance as favorable, unfavorable, or unchanged/unknown.

	Direct material price variance	Direct material quantity variance	Direct labor rate variance	Direct labor efficiency variance	Variable MOH rate variance	Variable MOH efficiency variance	Fixed overhead budget variance	Fixed overhead volume variance
Reorganization
Robots
Software