Choose an item that you would like to manufacture. You do not actually need to manufacture something, but will proceed through the assignment as if you were planning on manufacturing the item you have selected. The product should require materials and labor and be something that you are familiar with in process from start to finish. The product must be useful and marketable. You can choose something as simple as making chocolate chip cookies, a type of craft, or something more complicated. Consider production as if you were making the product from beginning to end, and not as if using a kit.

Perform the following steps:

Choose a product to manufacture and describe the manufacturing process.

Forecast the variable cost per unit.

Forecast manufacturing costs and selling and administrative expenses as either variable or fixed.

Prepare a contribution margin income statement separating all variable and fixed costs into their own categories.

Determine the breakeven point in units and dollars. Also, determine the number of units and dollars that need to be sold to make a target profit of $5,000 a month.

Identify what types of trends you should be aware of in the industry and who the primary competitors are.

Develop a balanced scorecard for a company that will sell your product, indicating two financial, two internal business process, two customer, and two learning and growth key productive indicators that will serve as the basis for your product strategy. Based on your costing scenario and information gathered from items 1-6, develop viable targets for these key productive indicators. Name an initiative the company can take to ensure the target is met.

Your final project should be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation that addresses each of these different areas. Steps #1-5 will involve numerical calculations and 6-7 should be put into the form of a table in proper format and included as part of the presentation.