, Columnist
Robots Are the New Seamstresses
The rebirth of manufacturing is here. Sweatshops and union jobs aren't.
Look, no hands.
Photographer: David Paul MorrisDecry it as sweatshop labor or praise it as “an escalator out of poverty,” low-wage sewing in faraway lands is going the way of the typing pool. The plummeting cost of industrial robots and the electronic cameras used for machine vision mean that serious automation is coming to even the cheapest sewn products.
A high-profile example is the “SpeedFactory” that Adidas recently unveiled in southern Germany. Robots there will start turning out shoes next year, and a similar U.S. plant is in the works. The aim is to increase flexibility and reduce inventories by bringing production closer to the market.