The production cost benchmarks reported on p$.6$ of each issue of the Footwear Industry Report

are of little value to companies producing branded footwear with a high S$/$Q rating $(6-$star or higher$)$ because such companies will always have above$-$average costs for total compensation, production labor costs, reject rates, and total production costs.

are of little use to company managers in making production$-$related decisions for the next decision round because they do not identify which specific companies had the lowest production labor costs, reject rates, and total production costs in the prior year.

are of value mainly to companies pursuing a strategy to be the industry's overall low cost provider of branded footwear; companies producing high$-$quality branded footwear can learn nothing from this data about how their production$-$related costs compare with production$-$related costs of other makers of high$-$quality branded footwear.

are of little value to company managers in making production$-$related decisions for the next decision round because none of the production benchmarks on page $6$ are helpful in determining whether the base wages and incentive pay per pair the company paid in the prior year at each of its production facilities was "too high" or "too low."

always merit close examination because they enable company managers to check whether certain aspects of the production operations at their company's production facilities are competitive $($or in line$)$ with the production outcomes at other production facilities in the same region $($and other regions as well$).$