Portsmouth Company makes fine colonial reproduction furniture. Upholstered furni
ID: 2462052 • Letter: P
Question
Portsmouth Company makes fine colonial reproduction furniture. Upholstered furniture is one of its major product lines and the bottleneck on this production line is time in the upholstery shop. Upholstering is a craft that takes years of experience to master and the demand for upholstered furniture far exceeds the company's capacity in the upholstering shop. Information concerning three of the company's upholstered chairs appears below: More time could be made available in the upholstery shop by asking the employees who work in this shop to work overtime. Assuming that this extra time would be used to produce sofas, up to how much of a premium should the company be willing to pay per hour to keep the upholstery shop open after normal working hours? A small nearby upholstering company has offered to upholster furniture for Portsmouth at a fixed charge of $46 per hour. The management of Portsmouth is confident that this upholstering company's work is high quality and their craftsmen should be able to work about as quickly as Portsmouth's own craftsmen on the simpler upholstering jobs such as the love seat. Should management accept this offer? Yes NoExplanation / Answer
Answer:1
The value of relaxing the constraint can be determined by computing the contribution margin per unit of the constrained resource:
The company should be willing to pay upto $50 per hour to keep the upholstrey shop open after normal working hours.
Answer:2
All 3 units are worth more than $46 cost, so the management should accept the offer.
Description Sofa Selling price per unit $ 1,750.00 Variable cost per unit $ 1,200.00 Contribution margin per unit (a) $ 550.00 Upholstery shop time required to produce one unit (b) 11 Maximum amount payable per hour(a)/ (b) $ 50.00