Which of the following statements about striving to reduce labor costs per pair produced at each of the company's production facilities is true?

a) Achieving labor costs per pair produced at a particular production facility that are below the region's industry average (as reported on p. 6 of FIR) requires company managers each year to seek out a combination of base pay increases, incentive payments per non-defective pair produced, total annual compensation, and expenditures for best practices training at the facility that is projected to achieve labor costs per branded pair lower than the prior year (since worker productivity at each production facility should be trending upward over time).

b) The most effective way for a company to achieve labor costs per pair produced that are below the industry average is to give workers base pay increases of 10% or above annually and to keep incentive pay below $1.00 per non-defective pair produced.

c) As long as labor productivity at every company's production facilities is in the range of 3,500 to 4,000 pairs produced per worker, then production labor costs per pair at each production facility will be competitive with the labor costs per pair produced at the production facilities of other companies with production facilities in the same regions.

d) Companies producing branded footwear with an S/Q rating above 6.0 stars are unlikely to achieve labor costs per pair produced that are below the industry average in those geographic regions where they have production facilities.

e) The most cost effective way for a company to achieve low labor costs per pair produced is to keep its total annual compensation per production worker at levels that are close to the highest (if not the highest) in the industry in each geographic region where it has production facilities.