Inside Speedfactory: Adidas' Robot-Powered, Shoe Production Facility

Last winter, the sportswear giant Adidas opened a pop-up store inside a Berlin shopping mall. The boutique was part of a corporate experiment called Storefactory--a name as flatly self- explanatory as it is consistent with the convention of German compound nouns. It offered a single product: machine- knit merino wool sweaters, made to order on the spot. Customers stepped up for body scans inside the showroom and then worked with an employee to design their own bespoke pullovers. The sweaters, which cost the equivalent of about $250 apiece, then materialized behind a glass wall in a matter of hours.