Final answer:
The rate of utilization for Company DEF is 81.3%, which is calculated by dividing the actual output by the effective capacity and then converting it to a percentage.
Step-by-step explanation:
The rate of utilization is a measure of the extent to which a company uses its productive capacity. For Company DEF, this is calculated by dividing the actual output by the effective capacity and then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
First, we find the effective capacity by multiplying the total capacity by the effective capacity percentage:
367,000 (total capacity) x 0.786 (78.6% effective capacity) = 288,582 (effective capacity)
Now, we calculate the rate of utilization:
234,654 (actual output) / 288,582 (effective capacity) = 0.813 or 81.3%
Therefore, the rate of utilization for Company DEF is 81.3%.