Adidas brings SpeedFactory in Asia and shuts-down two production sites: one in Germany and one in the USA. The re-shoring project for sneaker 4.0 appears to have been cancelled. The German athleisure group has defined the shipment of machinery, technology and know-how acquired, to its supplying Asian countries. Production of the SpeedFactories built between 2016 and today, will be completed in April 2020. Adidas will only still run technological innovation activities in Germany and nothing else.
The reasons
According to Reuters, Adidas supplied no explanations regarding its choice. Martin Shankland, head of global operations of the German group, meanwhile subtly communicated that the aspects of which he is in charge will be more “economical and flexible” in Asia.
The project
The SpeedFactory project, a 4.0 result of the large utilization of robotics and digitalization, were created as a medium to get the development and production of mainstream Adidas models closer to the Western marketplace. “While production of more ‘volume-focused’ models remains in Asia, Europe and the United States will concentrate on higher-quality models”, was the point of the statements made by the group. It would seem that not even this separation was possible.
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