Textile evolution: Sewbots to produce Adidas apparel

The largest apparel producer for sportswear giant Adidas – Chinese firm Tianyuan Garments Company – will introduce fully automated ‘Sewbots’ at its new facilities in Little Rock, China, in a bid to manufacture over 800,000 t-shirts per day.
 
The Sewbots, manufactured by US company SoftWear Automation, are intended to improve production efficiency with a patented computer vision system. The machines use a combination of cameras and needles to track the placement of a fabric before sewing the apparel at a reported higher level of accuracy than the human eye.
 
The investment is in conjunction with Tianyuan’s pending move to new facilities in Little Rock, China. The company is expected to begin production with the Sewbots by the end of 2018, reported China Daily.
 
Recent expansive operations by SoftWear Automation, as reported in T.EVO, started following investment by CTW Venture Partners which allowed the company to accelerate its development of Sewbots.
 
The acquisition of this technology is seen as a cost effective method to often labour-intensive work, and provides an opportunity to ‘near-shore’ manufacturing closer to the consumer.

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