The German sports retailer has said it will start selling its first robot-produced shoes in a new, state-of-the-art factory in its home market starting 2017.
The announcement came as Adidas unveiled its prototype “Speedfactory”, a state-of-the-art, 4,600 square-meter facility on Tuesday, meant to automate shoe production, which is largely done manually in Asian factories at the moment.
The new production site in the southern German city of Ansbach is still under construction, but it represents a return to local production for Adidas, which stopped manufacturing shoes in its home market more than two decades ago in favor of Asia.
But the company has struggled with steadily rising wages across the continent, where it employs around a million people.
Still, Adidas insisted that the aim was not to immediately replace their workers, saying the goal was not "full automatization".
http://www.dw.com/en/adidas-to-sell-robot-made-shoes-in-germany/a-19280669
The announcement came as Adidas unveiled its prototype “Speedfactory”, a state-of-the-art, 4,600 square-meter facility on Tuesday, meant to automate shoe production, which is largely done manually in Asian factories at the moment.
The new production site in the southern German city of Ansbach is still under construction, but it represents a return to local production for Adidas, which stopped manufacturing shoes in its home market more than two decades ago in favor of Asia.
But the company has struggled with steadily rising wages across the continent, where it employs around a million people.
Still, Adidas insisted that the aim was not to immediately replace their workers, saying the goal was not "full automatization".
http://www.dw.com/en/adidas-to-sell-robot-made-shoes-in-germany/a-19280669
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