MORE AUTOMATION: Adidas is working with companies like automotive supplier Johnson Controls, robotics experts Manz and knitting machine maker Stoll on new processes as it targets prototype in-store manufacturing by next year.
HERZOGENAURACH, Germany: German cobbler Adi Dassler revolutionised running when he started hammering spikes into track shoes almost a century ago. Today most of the 258 million pairs of shoes produced each year by his firm Adidas are made in low-cost Asia.
That could soon change as cheaper, faster and more flexible robots mean manufacturing – including producing fiddly footwear – could be brought closer to consumers in high-wage countries like Germany, speeding up delivery and slashing freight costs in what some call a fourth industrial revolution.
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