The Dawn of Robo-Workers

Before AI could conquer the professional world, robots probably take a faster track to replace human arms and legs in manufacturing. The sportswear duo, Nike and Adidas, has made remarkable progress in automating their factories for their highly technical products – Footwear.

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In the rise of individualism, retailers no longer can put their bets heavily on one-size-fit-all products while customers are looking around for customisability. Only robots can keep up with this burgeoning “long-tail” demand beyond a leapfrog of production and cost efficiency. Besides that, high degree of automation enables the reshoring of manufacturing bases to developed countries in order to create jobs and stay close to the consumption markets. This trend could possibly make an overturn of the retail-sourcing supply chain some years down the road.