Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question is from Brian Johnson with Barclays Capital.
Brian Johnson - Barclays Capital
Good afternoon or good morning.
Timothy Manganello
Hi Brian. All right.
Brian Johnson - Barclays Capital
As we look forward to 1Q, we saw 28% decremental margins in 4Q. When do you get margins back to the 20 to 25% decremental that you are looking for in '09? And when do that flexible stat... and what gets you there, is it flexible staffing, I mean how do we can come around that?
Robin Adams
I’ll start with that Brian. We continually target the next quarter to get to 20-25%. But as you know we have been chasing volumes here for the last couple of quarters. If we get some stability here, which we haven’t seen, the restructuring actions we’ve taken and the four-day work weeks in our European operations should get us close to that 20 to 25% range.
Brian Johnson - Barclays Capital
And second, kind of relate to that. If we are stuck at 12 to 13 million which, gradually (ph) and say Europe that's more like 18 million instead of 20 million production. Could you get back to your old level of profitability in each business unit? And if so, what's the timeframe for getting that?
Timothy Manganello
I don't know whether we will get exactly up to that level. But I think we'll have a really good shot at it. When we have really leaned up this company, and like I said, Brian, we are going to be staffed right now roughly by starting with the beginning of February, we'll staff close to 9.3 production build in North America and about 16.6 in total Europe for productions schedules.
And if we get those volumes, we should be in pretty good shape in terms of having pretty good operating margins. We are going to be really tight on bringing anybody back, I'll tell you that. It's hard to get them out, once I get them out, it's going to be very difficult in my mind for me to allow them to come back. But we'll bring back what we'd need to make those, to meet those kind of volumes. I would hope that we get those volumes soon. You're going to see those operating margins at historical 8.5 to 9% operating margins reasonably small.
Brian Johnson - Barclays Capital
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