ROI for the Manufacturing Plants
Continuing the company's ROI strategy, each manufacturing plant within the three product divisions had an annual ROI target to meet. Each product division's OEM sales were traced to the plants that made the parts. The plants maintained finished goods inventories and shipped parts directly to OEM customers. A plant's ROI target was based on budgeted profit (including allocations of division and corporate overhead expenses and an imputed income tax expense) divided by actual beginning-of-the-year net assets (defined as total assets less current liabilities) Exhibit 2 contains an example of the Rochester plant's actual 1992 ROI computation. Actual ROI was actual profit divided by actual beginning-of-the-year net assets.
Top management's stated reason for including allocated overhead expenses and taxes in determining profit was to have the plant profit figure resemble the profit calculation for external financial reports to shareholders. The CEO felt this gave a plant manager a clearer perspective of the costs of doing business and the plant's contribution to the corporate bottom line, and added more realism to the plant's results.
The beginning-of-the-year net assets amount was used in the ROI measurement because, in management's view, investment added during a given year resulted in little, if any, incremental profit that year. The investment would likely increase future profits. Top management felt that such investments might not be proposed if managers were penalized (in the form of higher net assets and lower ROI) in the first year of the new investment. Because the investment base for the year was “frozen” at the beginning-of-the-year level, maximizing profit during the year was equivalent to maximizing ROI. For beginning-of-the-year net assets, cash and receivables were allocated to plants on the basis of sales revenue, while inventories, property, plant, equipment, and current liabilities were traced specifically to each plant. Historical cost less accumulated depreciation (book value) was used to value property, plant, and equipment. The AM division's ROI was measured in the same manner as the plants' ROI.