Question

Portsmouth Company makes upholstered furniture. Its only variable cost is direct materials. The demand for the company's products far exceeds its manufacturing capacity. The bottleneck (or constriant) in the production process is upholstery labor-hours. Information concerning three of Portsmouth's upholstered chairs appears below: Recliner Sofa Love Seat Selling price per unit $ 1,290 $ 1,910 $ 1,425 Variable cost per unit $ 750 $ 1,350 $ 1,000 Upholstery labor-hours per unit 9 hours 14 hours 5 hours Required: 1. Portsmouth is considering paying its upholstery laborers additional compensation to work overtime. Assuming that this extra time would be used to produce sofas, up to how much of an overtime premium per hour should the company be willing to pay to keep the upholstery shop open after normal working hours? 2. A small nearby upholstering company has offered to upholster furniture for Portsmouth at a price of $35 per hour. The management of Portsmouth is confident that this upholstering company’s work is high quality and their craftsmen can work as quickly as Portsmouth’s own craftsmen on the simpler upholstering jobs such as the Love Seat. How much additional contribution margin per hour can Portsmouth earn if it provides the raw materials to the nearby company and then hires it to upholster the Love Seats? 3. Should Portsmouth hire the nearby upholstering company?

Answer 1

1
	Sofas
Selling price per unit	1910
Less: Variable cost per unit	1350
Contribution margin per unit	560
Upholstery shop time required to produce one unit	14
Contribution margin per unit of the constrained resource	40
Maximum overtime premium per hour = $40
2
	Love seat
Selling price per unit	1425
Less: Variable cost per unit	1000
Contribution margin per unit	425
Upholstery shop time required to produce one unit	5
Contribution margin per unit of the constrained resource	85
Less: Additional cost per hour	35
Additional Contribution margin per hour	50
3
Yes, hire the nearby upholstering company