The Economics of Carpeting and Resilient Flooring

Founded in 1921 as a separate Wharton department, the Industrial Research Unit has a long record of publication and research in the labor market, productivity, union relations, and business report fields. Major Industrial Research Unit studies as published as research projects are completed. This volume is Study no. 41.

The development of effective case and illustrative teaching materials for a modern graduate curriculum in business requires constant search for new problems, techniques, methods and applications. The carpeting-resilient flooring controversy appeared to be an excellent case for classroom use, particularly in courses on business policy and industrial engineering. Further professional interest was involved because the collection of such data would involve developing output performance standards for an important class of indirect labor activities.

After defining the necessary maintenance operations and appearance levels, cost information was developed separately for four types of floor areas: unobstructed areas, obstructed areas, individual offices, and areas subject to high risk of spillage under heavy, medium, and light traffic conditions. Total costs were divided into installed costs, maintenance labor costs, cost capital equipment, and expendable supplies.

Utilizing the amortized annual cost method, comparisons were made between the two floor covering materials in each of the four types of areas at various appearance levels. If annual dollar cost is the criterion, the summary conclusion is that under all conditions investigated, the total annual cost for resilient flooring is less than that for carpeting. Annual maintenance costs were found to be approximately equal, so an analyst can obtain a close approximation of the actual total annual cost difference by merely dividing initial installed cost by estimated service life for both materials.