Difficulties in Forecasting Fixed Manufacturing Costs
The fixed manufacturing cost rate is based on a numerator (budgeted fixed manufacturing
costs) and a denominator (some measure of capacity or capacity utilization). Our discussion
so far has emphasized issues concerning the choice of the denominator. Challenging
issues also arise in measuring the numerator. For example, deregulation of the U.S. electric
utility industry has resulted in many electric utilities becoming unprofitable. This situation
has led to write-downs in the values of the utilities’ plants and equipment. The
Learning
Objective 7
Understand other
issues that play an
important role in
capacity planning
and control
. . . uncertainty regarding
the expected spending
on capacity costs and
the demand for installed
capacity, the role of
capacity-related issues
in nonmanufacturing
areas, and the possible
use of activity-based
costing techniques in
allocating capacity costs
324 CHAPTER 9 INVENTORY COSTING AND CAPACITY ANALYSIS
write-downs reduce the numerator because there is less depreciation expense included in
the calculation of fixed capacity cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. The difficulty
that managers face in this situation is that the amount of write-downs is not clear-cut
but, rather, a matter of judgment.