The Restaurant Group manufactures the bags of frozen French fries used at its franchised restaurants. Last week, purchased and used pounds of potatoes at a price of per pound. During the week, 2,100 direct labor hours were incurred in the plant at a rate of $12.45 per hour. The standard price per pound of potatoes is $1.00, and the standard direct labor rate is $12.15 per hour. Standards indicate that for the number of bags of frozen fries produced, the factory should have used 95,000 pounds of potatoes and 2,000 hours of direct labor. 1. Determine the direct material price and quantity variances. 2. Think of a plausible explanation for the variances found in Requirement 1.3. Determine the direct labor rate and efficiency variances. 4. Could the explanation for the labor variances be tied to the material's variances? Explain.

Explanation:

The question was missing the actual amount of potatoes used and their actual price = 98,000 pounds at $0.85 per pound:

1. Determine the direct material price and quantity variances.

direct materials price variance = AQ x (AP - SP) = 98,000 x ($0.85 - $1) = $14,700 favorable

direct material quantity variance =  SP x (AQ - SQ) = $1 x (98,000 - 95,000) = $3,000 unfavorable

2. Think of a plausible explanation for the variances found in Requirement 1

Since the actual price of potatoes was less than the standard price, the price variance was favorable. But since the actual quantity used was more than the standard quantity, the quantity variance was unfavorable.

3. Determine the direct labor rate and efficiency variances.

direct labor rate variance = AH x (AR - SR) = 2,100 x ($12.45 - $12.15) = $630 unfavorable

direct labor efficiency variance = SR x (AH - SH) = $14.15 x (2,100 - 2,000) = $1,415 unfavorable

4. Could the explanation for the labor variances be tied to the material's variances?

Probably the labor efficiency variance since more materials had to be processed, but the labor rate variance is completely independent from the materials variances.

a manufacturer of printed circuit boards uses exponential smoothing with trend to forecast monthly demand of its product. at the end of december, the company wishes to forecast sales for january. the estimate of trend through november has been 200 additional boards sold per month. average sales have been around 1000 units per month. the demand for december was 1100 units. the company uses α = 0.20 and β = 0.10. make a forecast including trend for the month of january.