Ilectronics Inc. makes high-quality speakers for a variety of applications. Electronics Inc. is a St. Louis-based company but has significant manufacturing operations in China. When manufacturing operations were moved to China, the company's president was a strong proponent of just-in-time inventory management. Although the company maintained significant orders of component parts, finished goods were produced only to satisfy customer orders. Accordingly, work in process and finished goods inventories were small. However, moving production offshore significantly increased the complexity of the firm's logistics. Unexpected changes in product mix and product demand caused the firm's backlog of orders to rise significantly. In response, the company discontinued the use of JIT inventory management and instead, increased the stock of inventory on hand.

Why does globalization of a firm's production operations increase the challenges in controlling inventories using the JIT philosophy (pull system)?