It was indeed a very unusual day and Erica Pluhar was furious. This stressful mood

reverberated across Heat Track Inc $($HTI$).$ It was January $2023$ and Sandy Suber $($VP Finance$)$ had

just emailed the yearly performance summary reports. The results looked bad, but the report

which compared the actual results to what was budgeted stood out jarringly $($Data for the

report is in Appendices $1$ & $2).$ Evidently Erica did not like what she was seeing. The operating

income was nearly down by more than half of what was projected at the beginning of the year.

She came storming out of her office, startling her Executive Assistant, Susanna Reid asking for

an urgent meeting with her senior management team, which included the Vice Presidents of

Marketing, Manufacturing, Procurement and Finance.