Throughout college you spent break and vacations working at your parents$$ flower store. You made floral displays that were bright and cheerful, helped customers decide what flowers to purchase, and even swept the floor when necessary. As a result, you always thought of work as a process of meeting the demands of a specific customer. That all changed when you graduated from college and accepted a supervisor position with a steel products company. The plant you work in converts steel coils into heavy duty industrial storage cabinets, racks, and shelving units.

On your first day, you walk past the shipping department and look at finished cabinets being packaged for shipment. You think about how many steps it must take between the mining of raw materials in Northern Minnesota to shipping finished steel cabinets from your plant in Cleveland.

As you stand on the shipping floor, you are proud of the number of trucks departing hour after hour, each containing steel cabinets with the seal $$Made in America$$ stamped on them. It strikes you that, for many years, you had heard most products were no longer made in the United States. And you realize the country in which products are produced is determined by a number of ever$-$changing variables.

When you worked in your family flower store, you were part of the service industry. Whenever you created a beautiful floral bouquet and saw your customer smile at the result of your efforts, you were proud of the job you did. Now you will never get to see that look in the eyes of customers who buy your company$$s cabinets. You realize how different working in a service industry is from working in an industry that manufactures goods.

As you leave the shipping dock and walk toward the production floor, you walk past a group of employees furiously working to assemble shelving units. When you ask why they are working at such a fast pace, you are told they are fabricating shelving units needed by a major customer located just down the road. The sales team offered that customer a few customized options, and producing the units with these variations changes the manufacturing process. They are working furiously to get the job done on time.

You think how fortunate it is to have a key customer located just down the road. It allows your company to solicit customer feedback about your products, and update those products accordingly. Then you realize a number of important factors were probably considered before the decision was made to locate your plant in Cleveland.

As you continue walking through the facility, you note the facility mainly uses a product layout. Storage racks move from work station to work station where shelf components are cut from steel coils, shaped into their final form, spray painted, assembled into a final product, and sent to the shipping bay.

While walking through the paint department, two large computer systems catch your eye. When you ask why two systems are necessary, you are told the first system regulates the amount of paint sprayed on the steel shelves, while the second monitors the amount of paint consumed. That system is tied directly to the paint supplier. When paint inventory falls to a certain level, an order is automatically placed for additional paint.

Now you arrive at the department you will be overseeing, the receiving department. You see trucks at the receiving docks dropping off supplies. Among them are steel coils, screws and fasteners, paint, and packing materials. You can only imagine the number of decisions that must be made before these materials are converted into finished industrial storage cabinets and shipped to your customers.

The costs of environmental controls factories must comply with are lower in many foreign countries than they are in the United States" rather than "Environmental control regulation compliance costs for factories are lower in many foreign countries than they are in the United States.

a$.$ The costs of environmental controls factories must comply with are lower in many foreign countries than they are in the United States

b$.$ High shipping costs.

c$.$ As a result of technological advancements, it takes fewer man hours to manufacture specific goods than it took decades ago

d$.$ The cost of labor in the United States exceeds that of many other countries.

e$.$ Products produced in foreign countries are more reliable than those produced in the United States.