{"id":26113,"date":"2017-11-15T22:10:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T03:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/adidas-speedfactory-shoertening-its-supply-chain-with-3d-printing\/"},"modified":"2017-11-15T22:10:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T03:10:41","slug":"adidas-speedfactory-shoertening-its-supply-chain-with-3d-printing","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/adidas-speedfactory-shoertening-its-supply-chain-with-3d-printing\/","title":{"rendered":"Adidas SpeedFactory: \u201cShoe\u201drtening Its Supply Chain with 3D Printing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s consumer-centric world of fast fashion and high performance, quickly adapting to changing preferences lies at the core of Darwinian survival. Companies that provide customized goods must enhance supply chain methodologies to allow for a faster go-to market strategy, thereby reducing lag-time between customer orders and delivery. Failure to do so would result in consumer demand moving in an unsynchronized manner with a firm\u2019s production, thereby making it difficult to maintain or grow market share or even incur large capital expenditures for production, given the delay between investment and harvesting phases. A key question for managers is: How can companies become first-movers in how they supply highly customized goods to customers in<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the age of digitization?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At Adidas, management has embraced 3D printing as a means to shorten its supply chain and better match supply and demand, while providing superior durability and athletic performance. While 3D printing offers many benefits to Adidas in lowering R&D expense, accelerating its prototyping phase and providing higher quality trainers, such as those with \u201choneycomb\u201d nano-structure shock absorption technology [1], this essay focuses primarily on benefits from post-design supply chain optimization.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Adidas management introduced its SpeedFactory project, piloted in Ansbach Germany, which set to create several 3D-printing, automated production sites in various cities around the world to locally address its customers\u2019 needs [2]. In the short and medium term, Adidas hopes to tackle its traditional supply chain by harnessing the following principles:<\/p>\n