Question 1. Your firm designs training materials for computer training classes, and you have just received a request to bid on a contract to produce a complete set of training manuals for an 8-session class. From previous experience, you know that your firm follows an 85% learning rate. For this contract, it appears that the effort will be substantial, running 50 hours for the first session. Your firm bills at the rate of $100/hour and the overhead is expected to run a fixed $600 per session. The customer will pay you a flat fixed rate per session (Per Session Price.) If your profit markup is 20%, what will be the Total Price, the Per Session Price, and at what session will you break even?
Answer the following three questions:
a. What is the Total Price? This is what you would charge the customer so that you can have your profit markup of 20% over all of your costs. To calculate this, first figure out your cost per each session, add them up, and then add your profit.
b. What is the Per Session Price? This is the revenue that the customer pays you each time you complete a session. It is calculated by dividing the Total Price by the number of sessions.
c. What is the Break Even Point? At the beginning, your cost per session is more than your revenue per session. Gradually, your cumulative revenue matches the cumulative cost, and eventually exceeds it so that you can end up with the desired profit. The break-even point is the session at which, for the first time, your revenue exceeds your cost.
Question 2. A manufacturing firm has set up a project for developing a new machine for one of its production lines. The most likely estimated cost of the project itself is $1 million, but the most optimistic estimate is $900,000 while the pessimists predict a project cost of $1,200,000. The real problem is that even if the project costs are within those limits, if the project itself plus its implementation cost exceed 1,425,000, the project will not meet the firm's NPV hurdle. There are four cost categories involved in adding the prospective new machine to the production line: (1) engineering labor cost, (2) non-engineering labor cost, (3) assorted materials cost, and (4) production line down-time cost.
The engineering labor requirement has been estimated to be 600 hours, plus or minus 15% at a cost of $80 per hour. The non-engineering labor requirement is estimated to be 1500 hrs., but could be as low as 1200 hrs. or as high as 2200 hrs. at a cost of $35 per hour. Assorted material may run as high as $155,000 or as low as $100,000 but is most likely to be about $135,000. The best guess of time lost on the production line is 110 hours, possibly as low as 105 hours and as high as 120 hours. The line contributes about $500 per hour to the firms profit and overhead. What is the probability that the new machine project will meet the firm's NPV hurdle? Use Crystal Ball simulation to answer the question.