which one of the following is not an advantage of having plants to manufacture athletic footwear in all four geographic regions?

a. increased ability to gain volume discounts on purchases of superior materials and thereby lower the company's costs of using superior materials in producing branded footwear

b.better ability to lower the costs of warehouse operations in each geographic regions than rivals having only 1,2, or 3 plants

c. increased ability to reduce company wide spending for TQM/Six sigma programs because the benefits gained from TQM/Six sigma expenditures at one plant are automatically transferred to other plants at zero cost

d. maximum ability to achieve all available manufacturing economies of scale and thereby achieve a manufacturing cost advantage over rivals having plants in only 1,2, or 3 geographic regions

e. increased ability to reduce tariff payments- this is because when a company has plants in all four geographic regions it typically needs to ship fewer pairs of footwear into North America, Europe Africa, Latin America and the Asia Pacific from plants outside these region.