Sports equipment manufacturer Reebok International Ltd is bringing some of its shoemaking back to the US, unveiling plans to open a new manufacturing lab next year using innovative liquid material and 3D drawing.
Some parts of the 300 pairs of shoes planned will come from Asia, but the most technical components will be manufactured in Wixom, Michigan, the company said on Saturday.
German chemical giant BASF SE developed with Reebok a liquid material that is drawn across the outsole of the shoe for a three-dimensional fit with the help of 3D drawing. The material helps absorb shock.
“This is the very first use of this process to make athletic footwear. We borrowed and enhanced it from a process we found in the automotive industry,” said Bill McInnis said. “The Liquid Factory concept is proprietary to Reebok.”
All of Reebok’s shoes were previously made in Asia.
“This is ultimately a local-for-local program. Once we define a manufacturing cell, we can do it anywhere,” McInnis said.
In the short term, Reebok will only produce a small series of the shoes at the relatively high price — US$189 for the first version — due to still expensive development costs.
In the long term, Reebok hopes to use this technology to create a product with competitive prices.
“The Liquid Factory process is very flexible in that each machine can be used to create as many different concepts as imagination allows — it’s programming, not molds,” McInnis said. “Scaling up is a matter of installing more Liquid Factory machine setups. The local manufacturing also gets us much closer to the consumer in terms of speed to market.”
Reebok is not alone in localizing production.
In May, Germany’s Adidas AG announced it was opening a production site operated mostly by robots in the city of Ansbach, due to begin mass production next year.
An Adidas site is due to open next year in the US.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS