ACCM4100 The Importance of Teamwork

Sweden Ltd manufactures cabinets. Your team works in the accounting department and has been tasked with preparing the Budget for the next month Your team has also been asked to provide management with some information and advice on kaizen budgeting.
Sweden makes two products:
Premium cabinets - large cabinets with mirrors
De Luxe cabinets - medium sized cabinets with an innovative shelving solution Direct manufacturing labour is 3 hours for the premium cabinet and 5 hours for the De Luxe. The budgeted direct material usage for each product in 2018 is:
Square metres Premium De Luxe
Mirrors 2 0
Softwood 1 5
Hardwood 4 1
Balsa wood 1 4

Opening direct materials inventory for September 2018 is:Square metres Premium De Luxe
Mirrors 40 0
Softwood 10 30
Hardwood 100 5
Balsa wood 4 40

Target ending direct materials inventory (September 30) is:Square metres Premium De Luxe
Mirrors 24 0
Softwood 6 40
Hardwood 80 4
Balsa wood 4 44

Unit cost data is expected to be the same for September as it was in August for labour and all materials except Balsa Wood where a change in supplier has resulted in a cost increase of 50%. Detailed cost data is as follows:
August (actual) September (budgeted)

Mirrors per square metre 160 160
Softwood per square metre 125 125
Hardwood per square metre 12 12
Balsa wood per square metre 16 24
Manufacturing labour cost per hour 30 30

Manufacturing overhead (both variable and fixed) is allocated to each cabinet on the basis of budgeted direct manufacturing labour hours.The budgeted variable manufacturing overhead rate for September 2018 is $35 per direct manufacturing labour-hour.
The budgeted fixed manufacturing overhead for the month is $42,500. Both variable and fixed manufacturing overhead costs are allocated to each unit of finished goods on the basis of direct manufacturing labour-hours.

In order to achieve high work efficiency, organisations often use employees that are organised into the cross functional groups. While moving from classrooms to the corporate world, we will be asked to work in the collaborative manner with the other members of the teams created to achieve particular organisational goal. Therefore, it is necessary for us to understand the importance of teamwork.

Though, in the current times, working in the groups have become quite common, it is necessary to assess each teamwork experience and to identify the lessons learnt as a

Learning from the team assignment

Our team has been created by our lecturer for the purpose of completion of assignment given under the subject of management accounting. With the motive of assessing our understanding on management accounting tools and techniques, our lecturer has given us a case study related to the topic: preparations of various types of budgets for a cabinet manufacturing concern. As a part of teamwork assignment I have been assigned the task of preparation of sales (revenue) budget, production budget and the direct material budget for both the categories of cabinets manufactured by the company in the given case study.

For the purpose of the assignment that required good amount of sincere efforts as a team, we were asked to assimilate into the groups of three students. The assigned project was discussed clearly by our professor before instructing us to start working on that and during the project orientation class, the professor also assigned all the three of us our responsibilities in context of our given project.

In my opinion, the team creation decision of our professor was quite good decision as all the three of us were sincere enough towards the assigned individual goals. As a team, we all were committed to the overall success of the group. Hence, each member from our team has performed our level best in the respective areas. Not only the efficiency and correctness of our individual works allowed us to contribute the success of the given project but the coordination has also played the most important role in the smooth completion of the task by in the timely manner.

Once it was decided as to what we need to perform as a task, we clearly assigned the deadlines for our respective works. The nature of the assignment was as such which required the work to be performed in the linear fashion as the output of work of one member was to be used as the input for another’s work (Horngren et. al., 2002). As I was assigned with the work of preparation of budgets in the areas of sales, production and the purchase of raw materials, my task was the basic most one (Hansen, Mowen & Guan, 2007).

The results of my task were supposed to form as the basis for the other team members. Therefore, it was my core responsibility to complete the assigned work in the minimum possible time without any delays so that the other team members could proceed with their piece of assigned work on time to avoid any ill-consequences of delay in the submission of the assigned project (Vallas, 2003).

Since, I knew the relevance of my piece of work, I applied due diligence in performing all the calculations that were necessary to conclude my part. Also, I was concerned enough to show my calculations in the most clear ways so that the other team members could understand the data generated by me while inputting the same in their piece of work (Salas, Rosen, 2013).

Conclusion

The entire assignment engagement has allowed all me to develop a deep understanding of the importance of teamwork and the relevance of each member’s role in the successful completion of project in the given time. I personally feel that if the entire project was completely assigned to any of the members in place of applying of the approach of teamwork to it, it would not be possible for any of us to achieve the desired level of efficiency in delivering the assignment as the budget preparations required certain amount of time and efforts, which were difficult for an individual member to invest.

Teamwork has allowed us to understand the significance of cooperation between all the members in the overall success of the project. This knowledge that we have gathered by practically working as a team will certainly encourage us to provide our level best to achieve the overall organisational goal, while we will enter the practical corporate world.

References

Hansen, D., Mowen, M. and Guan, L., 2007. Cost management: accounting and control. Cengage Learning.

Horngren, C.T., Bhimani, A., Datar, S.M., Foster, G. and Horngren, C.T., 2002. Management and cost accounting. Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Salas, E. and Rosen, M.A., 2013. Building high reliability teams: progress and some reflections on teamwork training. BMJ Qual Saf, 22(5), pp.369-373.

Vallas, S.P., 2003. Why teamwork fails: Obstacles to workplace change in four manufacturing plants. American Sociological Review, pp.223-25