Why “Mexican” robots destroyed business Nike

An interesting article by The Wall Street Journal is the moment in history that the manufacturer of the shoe Nike could not overcome, especially at a time when automation and production costs are needed.

This is due to the fact that Donald Trump’s new tariff policy and the desire to produce production and assembly of products that should be made directly in North America, not depending on the lowest costs of Asia in human labor, led to a giant from flexible technological production in order to build a plant in Jalisco, Guadalahara in 2017.

The peculiarity of this Mexican factory is that Flex wanted to raise automation to the limit, driving a large number of robots than people to reduce the cost and accelerate mass production.

Even the Governor of Jalisco, Aristotle Sandoval, boasted at the opening of the factory to create 5,000 new jobs.

“We worked together to reduce problems, generate conditions, increase incentives, and I want to tell you: Flex was completed, they promised to create jobs while the government brings support and incentives, we have reached: 5,000 employees, but what should be, and it is important that we get 11,000 jobs.”

What happened to Mexican robots

“If you want to leave China and Vietnam, they should have technologies to do this a different way,” said Mike Dennison, then the FLEX president, in 2016. This was a great obligation of the association, which began with his test in Jalisco.

After a decade, Nike wanted to increase production by reducing their costs for robotic automation. But what failed?

“Nike and Flex installed new production lines that used cars that are usually found in the manufacture of electronic products, but rarely in the manufacture of shoes, such as the“ Collection and place ”machine, which is known for assembling the components in the schemes.

It was the lack of experience in the head of shoes that played a poor passage to technology.

Robots experienced difficulties in processing soft, soft and elastic pieces, which are an integral part of shoe production. The fabrics of the shoes are also expanded and compressed depending on the temperature, while in the manufacture of shoes there are no exactly the same sole.

Human workers can adapt to such problems, but it was difficult for cars.

“You are trying to do something very accurate, and then it becomes a little colder or warmer, and the material changes in you,” said Fletcher. “We do not expect this.”

“As a result, factory production never became as automated as planned. As the manufacture of shoes increased, the personnel of the plant increased to 5,000, approximately twice as much as it was planned and cost more than similar labor in Vietnam. The task of the task was to have a difficult task for automation, for example, the thin work of the paste sole to the upper part of the shoe, ”the WSJ report adds.

“If you do not place it correctly, there will be a noticeable torsion of shoes, a displacement, which aesthetically means that it will not pass quality tests,” said Fletcher.

Of course, so robots and work on automation (as in the assembly of mobile phones or cars) require simple processes and equal models, but shoes are a unique world: each shoes are different.

“You must make victims, from how to design to the complexity of materials and models with which you will work,” said Michael Newton, the former head of Nike, who led the project. “This is contrary to what the consumer wants. They want an incredible variety of products. ”

Flex and Nike finished the project in early 2019.