Question

Option #1: Variance Analysis and Benchmarking Your supervisor has asked you to prepare some calculations based on the company's data and then research publicly available similar competitor information to see how your company is performing within the industry. Your company, Carrylt Inc., produces mass quantity, inexpensive tote bags for promotional marketing purposes, which is a very competitive business. Here is the available data for your company: Labor hours 25: Labor rate $11.75/hour; Materials input.5 yds. fabric; Materials price $1.50/yd.; and Variable overhead rate $5.00 per direct labor hour. You are also able to find an industry profile report via a Dun Bradstreet database that has selected data from a few other companies in similar businesses as well as some industry statistics. Here's the data available: Unit Variable Cost Star Company GoldBag Corporation PromoTotes LLC Industry Data Item Labor hours .35 .20 .30 .30 Labor rate $11.25 $11.95 $12.50 $11.65 Materials input 45 yds. .675 yds. .50 yds. .55 yds. Materials price $1.65/yd. $1.35/yd. $1.55/yd. $1.50/yd $6.00 per direct labor $5.25 per direct labor $4.70 per direct labor $5.45 per direct labor Variable OH rate hour hour hour hour For your task, in Microsoft Excel, compute the following measures: 1. Total variable cost per unit for Carrylt, the competitors, and the industry average. 2. What is the percentage of the total for each component (materials, labor, and variable overhead)? 3. Assume industry data is your benchmark. What are the price and efficiency variances for direct materials and direct labor for each company? 4. What is the percentage over standard by company and by variance? Below the computations in Excel, please summarize your observations about how Carrylt's performance stacks up to its competition from the benchmarking exercise in 2-3 well written paragraphs. Include suggestions for areas of improvement and comments on areas where the company does well.

Answer 1

1. Computation of total variable cost

Particulars	Amount
Labour cost (.25*11.75)	2.94
Material Cost (.5*1.5)	0.75
Variable overhead cost (.25*5)	1.25
Total Variable cost per unit	4.94

2. Computation of percentage for total of each component

Particulars	Amount	Percentage
Labour cost (.25*11.75)	2.94	(2.94/4.94) =59.51%
Material Cost (.5*1.5)	0.75	(.75/4.94) = 15.19%
Variable overhead cost (.25*5)	1.25	(1.25/4.94) =25.3%
Total Variable cost per unit	4.94

3. Materail price variance = Actual Quantity X Standard Price - Actual price X Actual quantity   

=(0.5*1.5) - (0.5*1.5)

=0 No variance

Material Yeild Variance =(Standard unit usage - Actual unit usage) x Standard cost per unit

=(0.55-0.5)1.5

=0.075 Favourable

Direct labour efficiency variance = (Standard hours -Actual hours) x Standard rate

=(0.3-0.25)11.65

=0.5825 Favourable

Direct Material Price Variance =Actual hours X Standard Price - Actual price X Actual hours

=0.25*11.65 - 0.25*11.75

=0.025 unfavourable

4. Percentage over by company and by variance

Particulars	Actual Amount	Industry amount	variance	Percentage
Labour cost	(.25*11.75) =2.94	(.3*11.65) =3.5	=3.5-2.94 = 0.56 F	(0.56/3.5) = 16%
Material Cost	(.5*1.5)= 0.75	(0.55*1.5) =0.83	0.83-0.75 =0.08 F	0.08/0.75 =10.67%
Variable overhead cost	(.25*5) = 1.25	(0.3*5.45) =1.64	1.64-1.25 =0.39 F	0.39/1.25 =31.2%
Total Variable cost per unit	4.94	5.97	1.03 F	1.03/4.94 =20.85%

If we compare our benchmark data (industry data) with company data, then we can analyse that overall we are performing vey well and are more efficient in total cost. But we are higher rate for labour than industry rates.

Also, while comparing the data with Star company , we conclude that we are paying higher rate for labour as well as we are using more quantity of material. In comparison with Goldbag corporation, we are consuming more labour as well as paying more for material.

In case of Promototes LLC, we conclude that every other cost are less than promoyotes but variable overhead cost is higher.

In overall cost, where total cost of Star company is 6.78, Goldbag corporation is 4.35, Promototes LLC is 5.94 and industry total cost is 5.97, we need to perform better than goldbag corporation because its total cost is lower than us.