Portsmouth company makes upholstered furniture. its only variable cost is direct materials. the demand for the company's products far exceeds its manufacturing capacity. the bottleneck (or constriant) in the production process is upholstery labor-hours. information concerning three of portsmouth's upholstered chairs appears below:

In december of 2004, the company you own entered into a 20-year contract with a grain supplier for daily deliveries of grain to its hot dog bun manufacturing facility. the contract called for "10,000 pounds of grain" to be delivered to the facility at the price of $100,000 per day. until february 2017, the supplier provided processed grain which could easily be used in your manufacturing process. however, no longer wanting to absorb the cost of having the grain processed, the supplier began delivering whole grain. the supplier is arguing that the contract does not specify the type of grain that would be supplied and that it has not breached the contract. your company is arguing that the supplier has an onsite processing plant and processed grain was implicit to the terms of the contract. over the remaining term of the contract, reshipping and having the grain processed would cost your company approximately $10,000,000, opposed to a cost of around $1,000,000 to the supplier. after speaking with in-house counsel, it was estimated that litigation would cost the company several million dollars and last for years. weighing the costs of litigation, along with possible ambiguity in the contract, what are three options you could take to resolve the dispute? which would be the best option for your business and why?

Carlton industries is considering a new project that they plan to price at $74.00 per unit. the variable costs are estimated at $39.22 per unit and total fixed costs are estimated at $12,085. the initial investment required is $8,000 and the project has an estimated life of 4 years. the firm requires a return of 8 percent. ignore the effect of taxes. what is the degree of operating leverage at the financial break-even level of output?

Krier industries has just completed its sales forecasts and its marketing department estimates that the company will sell 43,800 units during the upcoming year. in the past, management has maintained inventories of finished goods at approximately 3 months' sales. however, the estimated inventory at the start of the year of the budget period is only 7,300 units. sales occur evenly throughout the year. what is the estimated production level (units) for the first month of the upcoming budget year?