At a recent seminar you attended, the invited speaker was discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of standard costs in terms of evaluating performance and motivating goal-congruent behavior on the part of employees. One criticism of standard costs in particular caught your attention: The use of conventional standard costs may not provide appropriate incentives for improvements needed to compete effectively with world-class organizations. The speaker then discussed so-called "continuous-improvement standard cost". Such standards embody systematically lower costs over time. For example, on a monthly basis, it might be appropriate to budget a 1.0% reduction in per-unit direct labor cost. Assume that the standard wage rate into the foreseeable future is $23 per hour. Assume, too, that the budgeted labor hour standard for October of the current year is 2.20 hours and that this standard is reduced each month by 2%. During December of the current year the company produced 8,300 units of XL-10, using 18.500 direct labor hours. The actual wage rate per hour in December was $25.00. 1. Prepare a table that contains the standard labor-hour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the four months, October through January. 2. Compute the direct labor efficiency variance for December. (Show calculations.) 3. What behavioral considerations apply to the decision to use continuous-improvement standards?
