[barelystayingsane]

My question is about an explanation for a wrong answer on a Becker BEC practice problem. I didn’t choose the answer, but the explanation didn’t make sense to me. Here’s the problem:

Fabro, Inc. produced 1,500 units of Product RX-6 last week. The inputs to the production process were as follows:

450 lbs. of Material A @ $1.50/lb.

300 lbs. of Material Z @ $2.75/lb.

300 labor hrs @ $15.00/hr

What is the best productivity measure for the first-line supervisor in Fabro’s production plant?

Choice “b” ( which was 2.00 units per pound) is incorrect. The supervisor can affect the efficiency of material usage but not the units per pound.

My question is, wouldn’t improving the efficiency of material usage increase the number of units per pound of material and vice versa? Let’s say you had some shoddy materials and thus had to throw some away because they weren’t up to standard. That would obviously decrease your efficiency and wouldn’t you also include those disposed materials in your productivity calculation as part of “all inputs,” thus reducing your units per pound of material? I’m confused why Becker is treating “efficiency of material usage” and “units per pound” as two unrelated measures.

[SeattleAccountant]

Becker Class of Jan - Aug 2013: FARB DONE!!!!
CPA license pending 🙂

[MCLKT]

I could be way off here. But just trying to reason through it.

If all materials are able to be used, and 1 unit requires a .5 lb of material, the supervisor can't change that. No matter what. (I think of it as trying to get 4 square feet out of a square yard… it'll never happen. No matter how well the supervisor improves the productivity.)

In your example, if the materials were shoddy and you had to throw .25lbs out per unit, causing an increase to say 2 units per 1.5 lbs that would be an efficiency measure that is in control of the supervisor and I believe spoilage would be mentioned as a consideration in the problem. But the problem asks for Productivity, which I would interpret as Units per hour of labor.

What was the answer?

A:[73]97 F:[74]85 R:86 B:[74]82
*NINJA 10 Pt. COMBO & Yaeger*

[barelystayingsane]

Yeah, the correct answer was units per DL hour.

Thanks for your explanation! That makes sense.

[Author]

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