Adidas Unveiled The New Speed Plant In Anne Bach, Southern Germany.

The future is likely to be bought by consumers.

It is not "Made in China" or "Made in Vietnam", but "Made in Germany".

At the end of May 2016, Adidas announced to the media their new "Speed factory" in the southern part of Germany, Annes Bach.

The striking feature of this remarkable factory is highly automated.

According to reports, Adidas's speed plant, a production unit has about 6 machines, is divided into two groups of production lines: a group of sole production, a group of other parts of the production of sports shoes.

It takes about 5 hours to complete a pair of shoes from start to production.

In Adidas's production workshop in Asia, this process takes several weeks.

Factories that are full of science fiction may represent the future of footwear manufacturing.

At present, the 4600 square meter factory is still under construction.

Adidas said the speed plant will try out the first 500 pairs of sneakers in the third quarter of 2016.

The factory, which used robots to produce sports shoes, has been put into mass production since 2017. At the same time, ADI is also preparing to set up second "speed factories" in the United States.

The factories in Germany and the United States will produce about 500 thousand pairs of sneakers annually.

Automation means the minimum number of people involved in the production process.

Once the factory is built and put into operation, the entire factory will probably need only 160 employees.

In the report, Adidas's current CEO Hainer said that the purpose of speed factories was to increase efficiency, instead of replacing labor in a short time, and would not replace Adidas's production plant in Asia.

Gerd Manz, head of Adidas technology innovation, also said: "our goal is not all automation."

But it is undeniable that Asian countries are raising the price of labor, such as ADI.

The determination to stay in Asia has been shaken.

More than 20 years ago, with the pace of industrial pfer, Adidas gradually ceased manufacturing sports shoes in Germany and replaced the production base in Asian countries such as China, Vietnam and Kampuchea.

Until now, Adidas's sports shoes are mainly dependent on about 1000000 workers in Asia.

As wages and raw materials prices rise, Adidas's production costs in Asia are getting higher and higher.

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In recent years, however, Adidas has faced higher production costs in Asia.

In particular, with the rise of labor force prices in China as a manufacturing power and the reduction of labor force caused by aging population, China seems not to be the most ideal manufacturing factory.

According to reports, John McNamara, head of Adidas global purchasing department, has said that the wages of Chinese workers are getting higher and higher. Raw materials from China are becoming more and more expensive. Adidas will consider more countries such as Vietnam, Kampuchea, Burma and Indonesia, which have lower labor and raw materials, to reduce production costs.

Labor is becoming more and more expensive, but technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper.

The emergence of robotics and automation technology has enabled enterprises to see the future direction of manufacturing pformation.

In addition, another consideration for Adidas to put manufacturing plants in Germany is to make the production end close to the consumer side.

The European market has always been the base of Adidas, and is also a big cake coveted by rivals such as Nike.

Morgan Stanley's AlphaWise European sports brand report, although Nike has already exceeded ADI in popularity, but in the European market, Adidas in the 12 month survey period, the amount of purchase and all are slightly higher than Nike.

In the European market, Adidas's purchase and current volume are slightly higher than Nike's.

Adidas needs to take stronger measures in the traditional territories to change some of the existing problems, such as Katia Schreiber, Adidas's senior public relations director, said in the report: "when consumers get the product, they have been away from retailers for months."

"We are making efforts to keep our production area close to consumers, eliminating the need for intermediate pmission and pshipment.

The ideal mode is that retailers can place orders according to current trends, and we do not have to save large quantities of products for just in case.

Katia Schreiber said.

At present, it takes 18 months for Adidas to develop and eventually sell a pair of shoes.

A market that is extremely sensitive to fashion trends can't wait that much time.

The whole process of sports shoes production is unified in one place, which not only reduces the cost of logistics and storage, but also makes ADI more flexible and faster in the production of sports shoes.

In the future, Adidas hopes to make sports shoes for customers on the spot with 3D technology.

Hina also said that in the long run, Adidas also plans to build a robot operated factory in the UK or France.

In the future, it is not impossible to spread a network of speed factories throughout the world.

Manufacturing industry is facing the same pformation period as agriculture.

The United States, the largest agricultural country in the world, is the largest food exporter in the world, but the US agricultural labor force accounts for only 1% of the total workforce.

Mechanized production has made this possible.

In the field of manufacturing, machines also shoulder the task of reducing costs, reducing labor and increasing production efficiency.

It is reported that the owner of Foxconn group, Taiwan Hon Hai Precision group, has been using robots in factories in mainland China since 2011, and has reduced 60 thousand jobs through the introduction of robotic systems.

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In the automotive industry, the use of industrial robots has been highly mature.

ADI CEO Haina said: "if you look at what the auto industry is doing with robots, you will find that we are just beginning."

Adidas's rival Nike also introduced robotics and automated production earlier, and fired 100 thousand workers in 2013, closing 125 inefficient factories.

Corporate profits increased by 16%.

The effect of Adidas's "speed factory" remains to be verified, but it can greatly reduce labor costs, which should be an undisputed fact.

Tim Vorster M, author of Forbes, once joked in reviewing Adidas speed factory: "there may be only one person and one dog in the future factory.

The man's job is to feed the dog. The dog's job is to prevent people from touching the robots that are working hard.

Speed factory efficiency is Adidas's most favorite advantage.

In 2015, sales of sports shoes contributed 8 billion 360 million euros to Adidas's total revenue of 16 billion 920 million euros.

Adidas produced 301 million pairs of sneakers in 2015 to ensure an annual growth rate of over 10%, which means that the company will produce at least 30 million pairs of sneakers a year in the next few years.

Adidas says cautiously that it is not yet able to judge the effect of real income growth.

However, some advisory bodies have made optimistic predictions about the efficiency and low cost of automated production.

The Boston consulting company (BCG) estimates that by 2025, advanced robots will increase the production capacity of many industries by about 30%, while reducing the labor cost of 18% in the United States, China and Germany.