San Jose Motors Case Study

San Jose Motors

San Jose Motors is a small company that produces motors for specialized equipment sold primarily to research laboratories and a major U.S. defense contractor. The operation is family owned and has been in business for 15 years. The company produces and sells three motors, named Motor 5, Motor 10, and Motor 15.

Bob Noonan was recently hired as an accountant and reports to the controller, Jennifer Mackey. Bob has been performing routine types of accounting work, but he would like to become more involved in cost control and in analyses to help the managers make decisions. Recently, he performed a cost-volume-profit analysis of the company’s three products, as shown below. The analysis was based on data from last year’s accounting records.

Prior Year Data

Aggregate Motor 5 Motor 10 Motor 15

Sales at capacity (units) 300,000

Actual volume (units) 250,000 120,000 80,000 50,000

Price per unit $113.60 $140.00 $120.00 $40.00

Total revenue $28,400,000 $16,800,000 $9,600,000 $2,000,000

Variable cost per unit $85.60 $125.00 $62.50 $28.00

Total variable cost $21,400,000 $15,000,000 $5,000,000 $1,400,000

Fixed costs $6,000,000 $900,000 $4,500,000 $600,000

Operating profit $1,000,000 $900,000 $100,000 $0

Ratios:

Variable cost to sales 75.352% 89.286% 52.083% 70.000%

Contribution margin ratio 24.648% 10.714% 47.917% 30.000%

Utilization of capacity 83.333% 40.000% 26.667% 16.667%

Breakeven point:

Units 214,286

Revenues $24,342,857

Bob asked Jennifer for an opportunity to present his CVP analysis at the next weekly managers’ meeting. Jennifer had used CVP in the past, but had not formally presented it to the managers. She asked Bob if he had updated the prior year’s information for expected changes. Bob said he had thought about doing that, but did not know where to get that kind of information. Jennifer suggested that he bring his laptop to the meeting and ask for updated information from the managers at the meeting.

The following managers attended the meeting:

Connie Brock, Manufacturing Manager

Arturo Morales, Sales Manager

Paul Lucini,