How Powerful Is The ADI Robot Factory?

According to the world clothing and shoe net, last autumn, sports equipment giant

A new boutique was opened in a shopping mall in Berlin, which is part of Adidas's "storefront factory" pilot project.

The name of "shop factory" is simple and clear.

Here is only one product: machine woven Merino wool.

And can be made on site.

Customers measure the volume in the exhibition hall, and then design customized coats with store staff.

These woolen coats are priced at about $250 and can be delivered within a few hours.

The small chemical plant behind the glass window contains 3 industries.

The wool coat is printed in a similar matrix.

It is reported that only 10 coats can be produced daily.

However, the purpose of Adidas test is not to increase sales, but to test the acceptance of new concepts by customers.

Adidas is investing in these new concepts: design digitalization, localization, production automation, and product personalization.

The shop factory is just a small-scale experiment of these concepts, and a larger scale experiment is already in progress.

At the end of 2015, Adidas opened a new and highly automated manufacturing plant in Ansbacher, Germany.

It is about 35 miles away from Adidas headquarters, called "speed factory". It uses a series of new technologies, such as 3D printing, mechanical arm and computer weaving, to arm small workers' teams to produce sneakers.

In the past, these products were usually produced in large scale by manual labor in China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Adidas's new factory directly caters to the European market.

The digital design is conducive to the adjustment of various details, and robots can seamlessly pform the design into customized sneakers to satisfy consumers' preferences in the European market.

By making factories closer to consumers, Adidas can cut shipping time and fees.

Gade Manz, vice president of Adidas innovation group (Gerd Manz), said: "we are bringing speed.

We can respond to consumer demand in a matter of days. "

Adidas said the speed plant was "re inventing the manufacturing industry".

The media has also spared no effort in praising.

"The factory is reinventing the industry by bringing production back home," the economist reported.

In September 2016, the speed plant launched the first pair of sneakers: a Futurecraft M.F.G. (made in Germany) super limited edition running shoes.

In public relations promotion, Adidas released a 3 minute preview video, which not only introduced the shoes, but also focused on the whole production process.

The suspense electronic music is equipped with a series of close-up features that are full of future feeling: the computer keyboard is covered with gray residues, various digital control panels, and orange mechanical arms start to operate.

Adidas then put in 500 pairs of Futurecraft M.F.G. in Berlin, and people lined up in the streets, which were sold almost instantly.

While the shoe was released, Adidas also announced another big news: it is about to build second speed factories in Atlanta.

The future of manufacturing is also coming to the United States.

In October of this year, Adidas announced a new project called AM4 (Adidas Made For).

Adidas will work with the KOL to design a series of running shoes for different cities.

It is said that these shoes can solve the different challenges faced by runners in various regions: many runners walk to work in London, and their running shoes need to be suitable for night and rainy days; in New York, urban construction is always in progress and grid management, so runners need shoes that can flexibly turn at 90 degrees; the weather in Losangeles is very hot, and at the seaside; preliminary studies in Shanghai show that people mainly engage in indoor sports.

All AM4 running shoes will be produced in two speed factories and will be sold in limited quantities.

The practice of Adidas is somewhat puzzling.

On the one hand, the best quality running shoes on the market are probably suitable for Manhattan's roads.

If the speed plant's advantage is to bring the product to market quickly, why do we need to produce running shoes in Germany and sell it in China? (Adidas's ultimate goal is to speed up factories in more areas, but not now.

)

Obviously, it seems that speed factories are more suitable for greater economic ideas.

Adidas is not the only company that is concerned about the importance of customized production.

McKinsey, Bain, DDT, and nearly all consulting firms have published reports in recent years about how "scale individuation" determines the future.

In short, the speed plant combines the idea of distributed production and 3D printing technology, and caters to President Trump's idea of bringing the manufacturing industry back to the United States.

In addition, Adidas's factories rely on robots, triggering a discussion about automation technology replacing human jobs.

From a non friendly point of view, perhaps speed factory is a well planned brand marketing activity.

Like many innovative ideas in this era, it is difficult to ascertain whether optimism or criticism should be expressed in discussions about speed factories.

I am very concerned about what this means for the United States.

Adidas's Atlanta plant has not yet been completed, so I went to the Bach plant.

To understand the future of the southern manufacturing industry in the United States, I need to go to a cornfield in central Bavaria, Germany.

Adidas is headquartered in heto, a town of 22 thousand people in the outskirts of Nuremberg. It is the two largest brand of Adidas and Puma.

The two most competitive sports equipment companies were founded by Adolf Darth and Rudolf Darth two brothers.

Rumor has it that the split between the two brothers began during World War II.

At one time, the antagonistic relationship between the two companies resulted in the split of the local residents.

Hedo root is a nickname "crooked neck town" because locals are used to looking at their feet in conversation to judge their business and social relationships.

This is not a problem in Adidas's Park, because the relationship between everyone here is clear: everyone wears Adidas shoes.

The park, called "sports world", occupies 146 acres, originally a Nazi air force base.

(after being commandeered by the US Army in 1945, the base was returned to the German government in 1992, and was bought by Adidas 5 years later.

Some of the barracks still stood there, and were pformed into offices.

The facade is glass Cafe Stripes, and the office building Laces, which looks sharp and looks like a terminal.

Inside Laces, elegant glass corridors are like sneakers worn from one end to the other.

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There are soccer fields, runways, boxing rooms and outdoor climbing walls in the park.

In addition, there are many outdoor sports venues, which can be used for beach volleyball, basketball and tennis, and the employees are indeed using them.

At the beginning of July, Adidas employees walked in twos and threes in the park.

Almost everyone inside and outside the stadium is wearing Adidas sportswear and sports shoes.

The disc like robot mower is busy on the grass.

The park is full of vitality, and the employees from the world seem to be healthy and happy.

Compared with the sports world, the factory with a speed of 1 hours away is a relatively ordinary building.

The speed plant is located in a white office building in the corn field. It is a flag of Adidas and a sign for manufacturing partners and factory operator Oechsler Motion.

I came here with other visitors.

In the carpet hall, we wear heavy rubber shoes, which is a protective measure.

We walked along the corridor to the rear of the building and entered the factory.

The factory has a white tone and is very bright, and the area is similar to the home depot store.

The ceiling is very high with no windows.

There are not many workers here, and there are not many machines.

The production line is made up of 3 parts: the robot cuts special knitted fabric with laser, trimming the shape and sewing it artificially, and then stitches the fabric to the sole with the machine.

At the end of the room, the orange arm is suspended on the pedestal above the foam filling machine, running according to the pre programmed procedure.

There are few sports shoes produced in the speed plant: Rolled knitted fabric, semi rigid thermoplastic polyurethane tape which is attached to the outside of sports shoes for shaping, finger width, used for thermal polyurethane white particles for Adidas logo Boost sole, orange neon line imported from Italy, and "floating torsion bar" for strengthening support.

A worker whistled and placed special shaped laser cutting knitted fabric on the conveyor belt.

The conveyor belt conveyed these fabrics through the white glass pipe, and the thermoplastic polyurethane tape was heated to the cloth to form an accurate pattern.

A factory worker slowly drove past in a white forklift.

Another worker conveyed these knitted fabrics to the manually operated sewing machine.

The operator of the sewing machine made these fabrics into three dimensional shoe upper.

Later, another worker placed his vamp on a device similar to the model foot and sent it to a large machine with glass doors.

After 93 seconds, the door of the machine closes and a hot light is emitted, and then the knitted upper is fused on the sole.

In the traditional shoe factory, the whole process is finished manually by workers, and the randomness is very strong.

And it looks like a futuristic oven.

Finally, a worker will be responsible for shoelace.

The whole process is fascinating.

When I returned to Nuremberg on the bus window, I realized I had just forgotten everything else.

This is the best time I spent in Germany.

Speed factories and storefront factories are all the creativity of Adidas's "future" team.

The team focuses on new technology, similar to the X laboratory inside Google.

The scale of the Department is small, accounting for only about 120 people in 5000 people's parks.

The team has a broad definition of "future": 2 to 7 years.

"We are like a small company inside Adidas."

Claus, a tall employee, told me.

He led me through the glass door to the office of the future team.

At the same time, everything he said sounds like magic.

"We try to push the company, stop laziness, and open up new fields."

Take a storefront factory as an example.

Claus introduced how this concept can be extended to the whole world.

Users (he also mentioned that it is very annoying to use the word "consumer") to order clothing anywhere in the world with only one volume.

"The future will become more universal and more free."

In the center of the future team office, a sneaker is hanging from the small industrial arm LBR iiwa of KUKA, a German industrial automation company.

Engineers are experimenting with methods that can be used in speed plants.

The arm is designed for lightweight, complex assembly work and can respond to touch.

It's like something in Pixar Animation.

The engineers of the future team asked me to train iiwa to do the movements, and I need to guide them with my own hands.

I turned my arm carefully, waiting for the robot to repeat the action, but it did not respond.

An engineer frowned and lit the control panel.

I asked the question: what role does a mechanical arm play in a speed factory?

Like many other questions for future teams, the answer is either highly confidential or unclear.

Tim Lucas, senior engineering director, said: "if you have a robot, you can use a completely different material to make a shoe." (Tim Lucas)

Robots can work in three dimensions.

You can develop very interesting new materials. "

Claus returned with a glass of purple drink in his hand.

He accompanied me back to the Laces office building, and we passed the MakerLab similar to the Loft apartment.

The hacker studios here are filled with cloth and other materials, as well as sewing machines, woodworking machines and 3D printers.

In the atrium of the building, employees gathered under a tree and knocked on their notebooks.

This is lunchtime. TED style speeches are usually held.

The whole scene is like an entrepreneurial company made up of athletes.

At present, the world's highest and most influential companies are from Silicon Valley.

Therefore, the business community has a strong belief that all companies should become technology companies, otherwise they will face the risk of being eliminated.

There is a common saying that either innovation or destruction.

Future members of the team often discuss the "open source approach" in the process of development enthusiastically.

In October this year, when the AM4 series was released, a video showed the screen inside the speed plant, while the voice over imitated the intermittent voice of astronauts from the remote Moon: "athlete data driven design".

Open source common innovation.

Humans and machines.

This sounds like a collection of Silicon Valley's popular vocabulary generated by algorithm.

"Innovative production line.

Accelerated manufacturing, from a few months to a few hours.

Optimize for athletes. "

This is not the first time Adidas has emphasized technology in product and brand communication.

In 1984, the company launched a running shoes called Micropacer.

A microcomputer is integrated into the running shoes, which can calculate running distance, speed and consumption of heat.

In the same year, Adidas also launched a sneaker called Fire.

This sneaker has built-in foam foam with different density.

In recent years, Adidas has also introduced a variety of advanced technology unique shoes, such as Futurecraft 4D.

The sneakers are made of "light and oxygen" and 3D printing technology.

Recently, Adidas is still using more environmentally friendly materials, such as the release of a number of products made from "Parley marine plastics".

This is a recycled plastic collected by a nonprofit organization from Maldives.

But apart from these tangible products, Adidas is also changing the way consumers look at fashion for a long time.

Because the manufacture of sneakers is often associated with sweatshops in Asia, companies such as Adidas and Nike usually do not publicize the origin story of their products.

However, with the development of environmentally-friendly materials, robots and personalized products, Adidas is encouraging consumers not only to think where products come from, but also to pay higher prices for the story of origin.

In fact, traditional factories, such as factories in China, have begun mass production to enhance the interlayer of shoes.

Therefore, these products do not necessarily need to be produced in speed factories.

In a technology filled environment, production of products that usually come from other places, rather than a method of optimizing supply chain, is rather a conception and a story.

Technology, or at least technology aesthetics, has a halo effect.

The Atlanta speed plant will bring 160 new jobs after the end of this year.

One of the key points is that robots in speed factories will not replace labor, but create jobs for factory workers with higher skill levels.

The positions advertised include quality inspectors, tailors, process engineers with robot experience, and technicians who can operate machines skillfully.

Compared with Adidas's annual output of nearly 300 million pairs, there are not many products here.

At least in the short term, the shoes produced by speed factories will only be sold to minority groups who are willing to pay $260 for limited edition shoes.

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Some economists are optimistic about the idea of speed factories, which represents a more long-term trend.

Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the progressive policy institute in Washington, D.C., said: "we finally got rid of the manufacturing trap in the past 20 years."

What he is talking about is mass production outsourcing activities in Asia.

At present, the development of automation can finally replace cheap foreign labor force and make factories closer to the location of consumers.

As manufacturing shifts from large-scale production abroad to customized and localized manufacturing, workers will get new jobs, and some of them will be better able to express themselves.

Mandel said: "in terms of manufacturing, we used to adopt distributed production methods.

Now I think manufacturing will be built around channel distribution. "

For now, however, Adidas has little incentive to withdraw from the global supply chain.

In recent years, Adidas's performance has been very good.

In the second quarter of 2017, Adidas's revenue grew by 21% over the same period last year.

All signs indicate that Adidas has developed better than Nike, the main competitor.

"If you are Nike or Adidas, with these outsourced factories earning enough money, there is no need to rush to change the status quo and invest in automation."

Sarosh Kuruvila, Professor of industrial relations at Cornell University, said: "people like to talk about how technology can change the world. There are many discussions on such topics." (Sarosh Kuruvilla)

But we must pay attention to the issue of economic efficiency.

I think the actual process will be much slower. "

On the contrary, Kuruvila believes that speed factories are less likely to be a harbinger of a comprehensive large-scale change in the US manufacturing sector, and more than just a company exploring how to keep pace with consumer expectations.

These expectations are not from competitors like Nike, but from fast fashion companies such as Amazon and technology companies.

Kuruvila pointed out that if today's consumers expect express delivery and rich commodity selection, then to a certain extent, we owe it to Amazon Prime membership service.

In other words, through speed factories, Adidas is trying to develop the ability to quickly customize products.

Adidas has tried to implant chips in shoes.

In the future, this method can collect consumer behavior data, and in turn bring more customized designs.

Amazon has learned a lot about consumer shopping and consumption habits.

This spring, Amazon received a patent on "on-demand" production system.

This is what Adidas's future team expects and wants to defeat in a way.

During my visit, Michael Vogel, chief information officer of Adidas (Michael Voegele), referred to the Amazon patent, comparing the sports equipment industry and the current taxi and hotel industry.

"We do not want to be overturned by the outside world."

He said.

This explains the motive behind Adidas's construction speed.

The ghosts of the technology industry are dimly visible.

This brings both longing and threat.

Looking back at Vogel's words, walking on the streets of Nuremberg, I suddenly felt sad.

All these technological improvements and running shoes can handle 90 degrees of rotation.

All these discussions on innovation, plastic from the ocean and 3D print soles are too uncertain.

I wonder if we are doing the same thing: trying to find a foothold in the future, and trying to maintain our status.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.