The sales manager, Gerhard Henk, had learned of the new plastic ring shortly after its appearance and had immediately asked when PWI would be able to supply them, particularly for sale to customers in France, where Henri Poulenc was the strongest competition faced by PWI. Bodo Eisenbach, the development engineer, estimated that the plastic rings could be produced by mid-September. The necessary tools and equipment could be obtained for about $7,500. Eisenbach had initially raised the issue of the steel-ring inventories that would not be used up by September. Henk believed that if the new ring could be produced at a substantially lower cost than the steel ones, the inventory problem was irrelevant; he suggested that the inventory be sold, or if that was impossible, thrown away. The size of the inventory, however, caused Thorborg to question this suggestion. He recalled that the size of the inventory resulted from having to order the highly specialized steel in large amounts so that a mill would be willing to handle the order.