Elroy had been with Barnes Machine Company a year since finishing a BS in industrial engineering (IE). Barnes had been in business for over 50 years, but the company had only recently moved from Detroit to Gainesville, Georgia. The public reason for the move was the economics of the old facility. Privately, based on comments he had heard, Elroy believed a shift to nonunion labor was a larger motive. Elroy's boss is the production supervisor, Mr. Hill. Because the plant and the workforce are new, Elroy has been conducting time-and-motion studies to establish new production standards. While these were clearly needed, Elroy was impatient to apply other IE tools he had studied. One Friday, Mr. Hill asked Elroy to attend a 10 a.m. meeting on Monday. Monday morning, Elroy was surprised to join not only Mr. Hill and John Blackburn, the head of manufacturing engineering, but also Mr. Simkins, the head of marketing and several others from sales and marketing. Most surprising was the attendance of the company's CEO, Mr. Barnes, Jir The meeting's purpose was to consider a request for proposal (RFP). As Mr. Simkins quickly pointed out, the request came from one of Barnes's most significant customers. The problem, and the reason for the special meeting, was that a successful bid would exceed current production capabilities. Mr. Simkins, in summarizing, said, "Fortunately Mr. Barnes was farsighted enough to have our new facility built with room for expansion