Question: Quality improvement, relevant costs, relevant revenues. TidyCar washes vehicles using a nohands approach. Business is good but Jonathan, the manager, has noticed that customers complain because there are streaks on their vehicles at pickup. TidyCar warrants that each vehicle will sparkle at delivery and charges $25 for each vehicle. TidyCar washes 100 vehicles each day and last month, 40% of them required a hand finish. Each hand wash costs $15. Jonathan believes the problem can be eliminated by a prewash (costing $2 per vehicle) and an equipment calibration at the start of each day, which will reduce the number of vehicles washed each day by 10, but will decrease the vehicles requiring a hand finish from 40% to 10%.
1. Should TidyCar implement Jonathan's idea? Show your calculations.
2. What nonfinancial and qualitative factors should TidyCar consider in deciding whether to implement the new design?