The managers of all companies should make a point of examining the production benchmarks shown on p. 6 of each year's Footwear Industry Report in order to:

A. determine whether immediate actions need to be taken at one or more of their company's production facilities to do a better job of managing total compensation, workforce productivity, production labor costs, spending for TQM/Six Sigma programs, total production costs, and/or reject rates.

B. discover whether rival companies are overspending on the use of superior materials and the use of new, as opposed to refurbished, production equipment.

C. learn whether it should pursue opportunities to lower its total production costs per pair by investing in one or more of the four production improvement options at its production facilities in one or more geographic regions.

D. determine whether the company has opportunities to boost its profitability by lowering its prices in both the Internet and Wholesale segments.

E. learn whether its TQM/Six-Sigma expenditures, reject rates, and total compensation packages for production labor are comparable to other rival companies that have similar S/Q ratings.