Adidas Will Shift Asian Production To Europe And America

Famous German sporting goods manufacturer

It is trying to pform its traditional business model.

In the future, robot manufacturing and 3D printing will become Adidas.

The main mode of production.

A few days ago, the company CEO Herbert Haina took an interview with reporters. He stressed that "in the face of growing market demand, we will use robots to make production, and the production line will return to Europe and the United States."

In addition, he also suggested that Adidas could open factories in Japan by 2020.

In the future, Adidas will make use of digital technology to expand the scale of new businesses, such as providing health management services to customers through sports app, so as to fight against the first industry in the United States.

Company.

In late May, Adidas put forward a "Speedfactory" plan to promote automatic mechanical production worldwide.

The plan will be implemented in Germany in the second half of 2017 and implemented in the United States in 2018.

Herbert Haina has reviewed the history of footwear production over the past 30 years, and shoemaking factories have withdrawn from Europe and pferred to low-cost Asian countries such as South Korea, China and Vietnam. He stressed that at present, even in Germany, where labor costs are relatively high, robots can be produced continuously with fewer people for 24 hours.

Asia's production advantages are gradually weakening.

Shoes, like clothing, are regarded as symbols of labor-intensive industries.

Adidas's production has returned to the developed countries as a place of consumption, and this decision will become a major turning point in the industry.

Haina pointed out that "production in Asia also needs to pport (to the place of consumption) time", if local production "this will speed up the operation of the whole industry and shorten the product cycle."

The time will be shortened from the current 6 weeks to 24 hours.

Adidas currently launches a new product every week, but because of the different uses, colors and sizes of these shoes, the stock is easily saturated.

If the mode of "local production and local consumption" can be realized in the future, it will shorten the delivery time, flexibly respond to consumer demand, reduce waste and achieve a small amount of production, and it can also respond quickly to changes in the trend of fashion.

In view of the scale of Adidas's annual production of more than 300 million pairs of shoes, Haina explained that "15% growth in demand is expected in the future.

On the basis of maintaining Asian production capacity, we will deal with 45 million pairs of annual growth through the production of robots in batches, "he said." Japan is the fourth largest market for us.

It is likely to start production in Japan before 2020, suggesting that Adidas may open robot automatic plant in Japan.

In addition, Adidas also plans to produce sneakers with special functions through 3D printers.

Haina said, "we are using 3D printers to produce some shoe soles, but the cost is still very expensive." but we still say that the next stage of robotics automation plant will be 3D printers.

There are also concerns that if anyone can make their own shoes in the future, then Adidas's large scale factory will lose its value.

But Haina said, "in the future, Adidas will sell the rights and software of footwear to individuals," which is a "opportunity".

Not only is 3D printers, but Adidas will further expand its business with digital technology.

App Runtastic, a developer of sport in 2015, is one of the representatives of Austria.

The software can record users' past sports history and heat consumption, and can also jog among friends.

Adidas hopes to attract the 18 million active users in the world to become Adidas customers against Nike's app development.

Haina believes that this kind of health management service will increase the opportunity to contact with the end consumers and form a product effect. "Sports enthusiasts will buy Adidas products".

It is said that Adidas's future business model will not only sell mobile phones and other hardware, but also gain profits from software to the Apple Corp.