Adidas Brings the Fast Shoe Revolution One Step Closer

The company’s “Speedfactories” can cut the time from sketch to shelf by months.

By: Richard Weiss

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In a production hall as clean as a hospital, pea-size beads of white plastic pour into what looks like a minivan-size Adidas shoe box, complete with three white stripes down the side. That’s fitting, because in just a few seconds the machine heats and molds the stuff into soles of Adidas running shoes, with only one worker needed to wedge in pieces of plastic called stability bars. This is Adidas AG’s “Speedfactory,” where the shoemaker aims to prove it can profitably produce footwear in high-cost, developed economies. By next fall the facility, as large as half a soccer field, will employ about 160 people to make 1,500 pairs of shoes a day, or 500,000 annually.

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