Question

Erie company has 500 units of capacity for their traditional product, Emu, and buys one point of automation. If Erie company’s current labor cost per unit of Emu is $10, and Erie sells 1,000 units per year of Emu, what is the payback period for this investment?

Answer 1

Answer: 2 years

Explanation:

The payback period is the amount of time that is needed for the required cash inflow of a project to offset the initial cash outflow that the business offsets. The payback period is when the initial outlay of an investment is recovered. There are two different methods used to calculate payback period. We have the average method and the subtraction method.

In the above question, the payback period is solved as follows:

Labour cost decreases by 10% for each unit.

Therefore,

= $10 × 10%

= $10 × 0.1

= $1 per unit.

In order to recover $2000, the business needs to sell the following;

= 2000/1

= 2000units.

If Eric sells 1000 units per year of Emu, it will take:

2000/1000= 2years

In conclusion, the payback period of the investment is 2 years.