Question

Can someone please correct my answer or answer the question? Please and thank you :)
At a recent seminar you attended, the invited speaker was discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of standard costs in terms of evaluating performance and motivating goal-congruent behavior on the part of employees. One criticism of standard costs in particular caught your attention: The use of conventional standard costs may not provide appropriate incentives for improvements needed to compete effectively with world-class organizations. The speaker then discussed so-called continuous-improvement standard costs. Such standards embody systematically lower costs over time. For example, on a monthly basis, it might be appropriate to budget a 1.0% reduction in per-unit direct labor cost. Assume that the standard wage rate into the foreseeable future is $29 per hour. Assume, too, that the budgeted labor-hour standard for October of the current year is 3.40 hours and that this standard is reduced each month by 2%. During December of the current year the company produced 5,800 units of XL-10, using 24,500 direct labor hours. The actual wage rate per hour in December was $31.00. Required: 1. Prepare a table that contains the standard labor-hour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months, October through January. 2. Compute the direct labor efficiency variance for December. Was this variance favorable (F) or unfavorable (U)?

Answer 1

2.

Direct labor efficiency variance = (Standard hours - Actual hours) * Standard rate

Direct labor efficiency variance = (5,800*3.26536 - 24,500) * $29

Direct labor efficiency variance = (18,939 - 24,500) * $29 = $161,269 Unfavorable

Answer provided to Requirement 1 is correct.