Opinion ID: 603784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: tempo

Text: 78 In early November 1988, Tempo representatives, including Charles Baker, a parts buyer for Ford, met with Vemco personnel at the Vemco facility. Tempo reviewed Vemco's facility to determine if Vemco was capable of painting and assembling certain fascias produced in the Tempo plant for the model year in progress. Tempo sought an outside source for these services because it projected that by spring of 1989 its production demands for the 1989 model would exceed its own in-house capacity to paint the fascias in question. 79 At the meeting, Tempo and Vemco discussed Tempo's delivery requirements, Vemco's manpower requirements, and Vemco's current inability to run the type of paint necessary for the Tempo parts. Tempo was looking to an April 1 product availability date, which would have required Vemco to start preparing the work by March 1. Vemco stated that it would need to establish a second shift if it obtained the contract and that a lead time of 12 to 24 weeks above and beyond the 30-day production start-up period would be required to acquire and install new equipment to handle the type of paint application Tempo required. 80 After this meeting, Tempo shipped test run parts to Vemco later in November. These were used only for estimating purposes because Vemco did not then have the equipment necessary to run the parts. Vemco's sales representative submitted an estimate to Baker by the end of that same month. Tempo reviewed this estimate in early December. In the end, Tempo never awarded this contract because a sales downturn reduced demand for the car models in question. Thus, Tempo's projected production shortfall never actually materialized. 81 By the time of the layoff, Vemco was justified in its determination that the Tempo work was not a serious possibility. Counting backward from Tempo's April 1 product availability date, and taking the shortest lead time Vemco told Tempo it needed to obtain and install the necessary new equipment, Vemco would have needed an order from Tempo by December 1, 1988, to assure on-time delivery. (If the longer equipment lead time is factored in, the project was out of the question before the meeting even took place.) 82 Tempo was still reviewing Vemco's bid in early December, so this latest date for placing the order to assure timely delivery came and went. There is no evidence in the record that Tempo ever communicated with Vemco concerning this bid before Vemco's layoff decision, other than to inform Vemco that its pricing was out of line. Tempo never informed Vemco of any revised delivery date for the parts involved. At any time past mid-December, therefore, Vemco would have been justified in deciding that the Tempo work was not a serious possibility under the terms discussed during the November meeting, especially if it were not willing or able to adjust its pricing to meet Tempo's cost objections. By March 1, the date Vemco would have had to have started production to meet the only delivery date it was aware of, the absence of the Tempo work would have been a legitimate reason for Schutz, Torakis, and Winget to realize that Vemco had not obtained the anticipated order. 83 Baker testified that in late March 1989 (after the layoff), he received a document from Vemco supplying more comprehensive and detailed pricing of the operations required. The GC refers to this document as a bid and implies that this bid shows Vemco had not lost hope for the Tempo work it bid on in 1988. From this implication, coupled with Baker's testimony that Tempo did not make a decision against giving the work to Vemco, he infers Vemco's determination that it would not receive the work was pretextual. Vemco, on the other hand, calls this document a marketing tool and states it was intended to show Tempo what kinds of information Vemco would make available to Tempo for review. 84 The document itself is labelled a Cost Analysis; it does not refer to a Ford part number, a number Baker testified would normally appear on a price quotation related to a Ford manufactured part. It is also labelled Original Quote/Price Request--Supplier Price Breakdown. If indeed this was a bid, there is no evidence that it was in any way updated or revised to meet Tempo's objection that Vemco's pricing was out of line. Further, the GC's unarticulated premise that Vemco could not pursue contact with Tempo as a potential customer without proving by such contact that the particular work quoted four months earlier was still a live project ignores the realities of the marketplace. A vendor's failure to obtain the first order bid on does not necessarily terminate the vendor's courtship of the buyer. Just as a rejected suitor may still have high hopes of capturing the bride by altering his appearance, personality, or whatever it takes, so it may be with a determined supplier. 85 Baker testified that he was still looking for a supplier for the work in question in March 1989. He also testified that he received a telephone call the first week of April from Vemco's sales representative inquiring what was going on. Baker responded that he had passed everything on to the appropriate parties at Tempo (in December) and had heard nothing since then. 86 Baker's statement that he was still actively looking for a supplier in March is inconsistent with the total lack of interest he displayed between December and April in following up Vemco's bid; his lack of interest is more consistent with an awareness that the bid had been rejected by the appropriate parties and a realization there was no possibility of reaching an agreement on whatever had caused the rejection. Further, that Baker was still looking for a supplier in March when Vemco implemented its layoff does not mean that Vemco, after four months had passed without any word from Tempo except a rejection of its price, was even aware of his continued search. Even assuming such awareness, Vemco had no sensible basis under these circumstances to believe that it still had serious prospects for the business. The Board's determination and the GC's insistence that Vemco's failure to obtain Tempo work was pretextual simply does not follow from the evidence.