The talbot corporation makes wheels that it uses in the production of bicycles. talbot's costs to produce 100,000 wheels annually are: direct materials $30,000 direct labor $50,000 variable manufacturing overhead $20,000 fixed manufacturing overhead $70,000 an outside supplier has offered to sell talbot similar wheels for $1.25 per wheel. if the wheels are purchased from the outside supplier, $15,000 of annual fixed overhead could be avoided and the facilities now being used could be rented to another company for $45,000 per year. direct labor is a variable cost. if talbot chooses to buy the wheel from the outside supplier, then annual net operating income would: a) $1.70 b) $1.60 c) $1.55 d) $1.15

Activity-based costing (abc) is not truly a cost collection mechanism as much as it is an inventory valuation method. the main purpose for implementing an activity-based cost system is to try to overcome some of the cost distortions that occur in traditional costing from product differences when there are variations in size and complexity. however, one of the disadvantages of utilizing abc is that the additional information gathering necessary to implement costing with that level of detail might be beyond the reach of some companies with resource or financial constraints. with this in mind, what kinds of industries or companies do you think would benefit most from using activity-based costing and why? in designing or modifying an accounting system to capture appropriate costs for abc, what considerations do you think would need to be made?