Machine and labour utilisation

steveborner

Hi All,

I have been given a question on Machine and labour utilisation and im not too sure how my answer should be given,

the question is as follows

A printing machine has the capacity to print 8000a4 pages per hour. during one 40 hour week 200,000 pages were printed. The labour force spent 120 hours that week working on products although 140 hours were paid for.

Calculate the machine and labour utilisation.

I have worked that the machine ran at 62.5% capacity and that equates to 5000 pager per hour. How should this answer be given? I do not have a clue what they expect me to do with labour utilisation?? this is all the information that I have.

Thanks in advance
Steve

SandyHood

As you have said:
Machine Utlisation is

62.5% capacity

and I am sure you found this by dividing the pages produced by the maximum possible.

Labour utilisation is similarly hours worked divided by hours paid.
In this case 85.71%

Presumably this information would then be communicated to an operations manager to investigate or adjust future plans.

steveborner

thanks sandy, that is the answer I submitted in the end. I find the Sims very poorly written and so you are never quite clear on how much is expected for an answer.

SandyHood

By sim do you mean a Simulation produced by AAT to assess whether you are competant, in which case:-

1. You should have done it in a controlled environment
2. You should not be asking anyone else to answer it for you

But if it is something your college has produced as practice before a real AAT simulation:-

1. I think posting questions to clarify the points are fine
2. I am more than happy to try and help

Best wishes with the course

Sandy

steveborner

Hi Sandy,

this was a question from a previous sim as prep work for my actual sim.

thanks for all the help

SandyHood

Steve
The point you make about understanding what a question means is very important.
To many of us, we may feel that we are passive as the candidates trying to decipher some code prepared by either an examiner or simulation writer. As a result we put the blame for our lack of understanding of what he or she has written.

Instead the proactive approach is look at as many ways the questions can be worded as possible. You are looking at old simulations and that is an excellent way of doing this. We can’t control the clarity with which the questions are written, but by doing as many past questions as possible we expose ourselves to as many ways of wording the question as possible. In this way we are ready for the exam.

ECR and at technician level PEV and PCR are all cost accounting papers and as cost accounting is an internal exercise to benefit the business the systems are produced in a highly customised way and can be very different from another business’s. So differences in these units are more likely compared to those units where formats are aimed at financial reporting requirements.