What strategies involve taking time to think carefully about a problem by breaking it up into parts, or looking at it in a more general way in order to generate ideas about how certain products or services can be improved or made more innovative?

The management at a pesticide manufacturing company has observed a decline in quality measures. the managers ask robin, the firm's hr manager, to investigate whether training might solve the problem. robin conducts needs assessment and recommends a training plan. which of the following conditions would most likely have been an observation during robin's person analysis?

Zachary company produces commercial gardening equipment. since production is highly automated, the company allocates its overhead costs to product lines using activity-based costing. the costs and cost drivers associated with the four overhead activity cost pools follow: activities unit level batch level product level facility level cost $ 64,800 $ 27,730 $ 15,000 $ 154,000 cost driver 2,400 labor hrs. 47 setups percentage of use 11,000 units production of 780 sets of cutting shears, one of the company’s 20 products, took 240 labor hours and 7 setups and consumed 15 percent of the product-sustaining activities. required: (a) had the company used labor hours as a company wide allocation base, how much overhead would it have allocated to the cutting shears? (b) how much overhead is allocated to the cutting shears using activity-based costing? (c) compute the overhead cost per unit for cutting shears first using activity-based costing and then using direct labor hours for allocation if 780 units are produced. if direct product costs are $150 and the product is priced at 30 percent above cost for what price would the product sell under each allocation system? (d) assuming that activity-based costing provides a more accurate estimate of cost, indicate whether the cutting shears would be over- or underpriced if direct labor hours are used as an allocation base. explain how over-or undercosting can affect vaulker's profitability. (e) comment on the validity of using the allocated facility-level cost in the pricing decision. should other costs be considered in a cost- plus pricing decision? if so, which ones? what costs would you include if you were trying to decide whether to accept a special order?

In 2015, lori assigned a paid-up whole life insurance policy to an irrevocable life insurance trust (ilit) for the benefit of her three children. the ilit contained a crummey provision for the benefit of each child. at the time of the transfer, the whole life insurance policy was valued at $200,000, and since lori had not made any other taxable gifts during her lifetime, she did not owe any gift tax. lori died in 2016, and the face value of the whole life insurance policy of $2,000,000 was paid to the ilit. regarding this transfer, how much is included in lori’s gross estate at her death?