Question

Hartman Company's Lucas plant manufactures thermostatic controls. Plant management has experienced fluctuating monthly overhead costs and wants to estimate overhead costs accurately to plan its operations and its financial needs. Interviews with plant personnel and studies reported in trade publications suggest that overhead in this industry tends to vary with labor-hours.

A member of the controller's staff proposed that the behavior pattern of these overhead costs be determined to improve cost estimation. Another staff member suggested that a good starting place for determining cost behavior patterns is to analyze historical data. Following this suggestion, monthly data were gathered on labor-hours and overhead costs for the past two years. No major changes in operations occurred over this period of time. The data are shown in the following table:

Month	Labor-Hours			Overhead Costs
1		251,570		$	2,741,320
2		238,470			2,375,280
3		192,700			2,400,200
4		271,350			2,590,790
5		323,850			3,071,870
6		290,970			2,618,220
7		271,350			2,480,290
8		251,590			2,745,610
9		231,925			2,821,400
10		343,500			3,437,760
11		185,970			2,273,390
12		231,920			2,550,730
13		382,840			3,603,770
14		376,350			3,404,840
15		290,960			3,016,550
16		395,970			3,638,390
17		356,590			3,553,950
18		323,790			3,191,670
19		389,415			3,481,770
20		317,220			3,219,570
21		343,480			3,495,480
22		336,910			3,207,310
23		382,850			3,600,680
24		376,290			3,636,700

Required:
(a)	Use the high-low estimation method to estimate the overhead cost behavior (fixed and variable portions components of cost) for the Lucas plant. (Round variable cost per unit answer to five decimal places. Use this value in subsequent computations. Round fixed costs to whole dollar value.)

(c)	Use a spreadsheet program to compute regression coefficients to describe the overhead cost equation. (Round your answers to 2 decimal places.)

(d)

Use the results of your regression analysis to develop an estimate of overhead costs assuming 370,000.00 labor-hours will be worked next month. (Round fixed costs to whole dollar value, labor hours to two decimal places for intermediate computations. Round your final answer to nearest whole dollar value.)

Answer 1