Outward Rowing Company manufactures canoes and kayaks. Due to an increasing
focus on fitness, the company has been experiencing an increased demand for its
products. Two of its newer products, which are very popular with water sport
enthusiasts, require a waterproofing process that can only be completed on machines
that were recently purchased for this purpose. The machines have a maximum capacity
of 12,000 machine hours, and no other products that the company makes use these
machines.
Charlie Green, the company ‘s operations manager, is preparing the production schedule
for the coming month and can ‘t seem to find enough machine time to produce enough
units to meet the customer demand that the marketing department has included in the
sales budget.
Mollie Beach, the company ‘s controller, has gathered the following information about
the two products:
Required
a. Calculate the total number of machine hours needed to produce enough units to meet
the sales demand for the two products.
b. How should Charlie allocate the 12,000 available machine hours between the two
products so that Outward Rowing maximizes its profits?
c. What total contribution margin will Outward Rowing realize based on your answer to
(b)?
d. Charlie has talked with the marketing department about the situation and suggested
that the company raise the sales price on the kayak to $320 to reduce customer demand.
The marketing department believes that at the higher price, demand for this kayak will
drop to 11,600 units. How should Charlie allocate the 12,000 machine hours based on
this new information? What total contribution margin will Outward Rowing earn?
e. After hearing about Charlie ‘s recommendation to increase the kayak price to $320,
Lon Clark, the sales manager, suggested that the company raise the price of the canoe
instead. He believes that if the price is increased to $264, demand will fall to 4,000
units. How should Charlie allocate the 12,000 machine hours under Lon ‘s proposal?
What total contribution margin will Outward Rowing earn?
f. Based on your answers to (c), (d), and (e), which action do you suggest that Outward
Rowing take? Why?