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.

The robot factory Adidas built in Germany is now fully functional and ready to start making the first Speedfactory shoe that will be sold to the public. Adidas has revealed that it plans to use its Speedfactory's robots to manufacture a series of Adidas Made For (AM4) kicks designed specifically for six of the world's biggest metropolises. The first one called AM4LDN was tailored for London and will be available in the city on October 19th. That will quickly be followed by AM4PAR (Paris) on October 26th, while the other four -- AM4LA (Los Angeles), AM4NYC (New York City), AM4TKY (Tokyo) and AM4SHA (Shanghai) -- will come out in 2018. The AM4 models are all lightweight and designed using athlete data to conjure up the most comfortable shape and form.

In the 1990s, fashion's relationship with robots was the stuff of fantasy. On the runway of Alexander McQueen's imaginative Spring/Summer 1999 show, two robotic arms spray-painted a white dress worn by Shalom Harlow. Today, the industry's relationship with automation is much more practical. In the distribution centres of e-commerce giants like the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group and Amazon (which, in 2012, paid $775 million to acquire Kiva Systems, a manufacturer of robotic fulfilment systems used by Gap, Gilt Groupe and Saks 5th Avenue) software-controlled robots routinely navigate giant warehouses, picking and transporting inventory faster and more accurately than humans, enabling services like same-day delivery. "Automated storage and retrieval systems provide high storage density as well as inventory accuracy and management, yet require a smaller footprint," explains Steve Crease, director of operations at Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, which uses ASRS to deliver its "key service level" of same-day delivery.

Your next Adidas runners might be made in America – by a robot. The shoemaker revealed more details today about its coming'Speedfactory,' which it previously announced would be coming to the U.S. in 2017. The factory will call Atlanta home, and feature 74,000 square feet of robot shoemaking capability, with full operational status target for the end of next year. The factory has an output capacity of 50,000 Paris of shoes per year, which is only a small slice of its overall annual shoe shipments. But the Atlanta facility will be Adidas' second Speedfactory, joining the original in its home territory of Germany.

Speed matters, and to iconic German sportswear manufacturer Adidas, that means turning to robots to revolutionize their production--the Speedfactory--a large-scale robot facility set first in Germany aimed at changing the industry. The company has just announced that the Speedfactory will be ready to go commercial in 2017. It was December last year when Adidas had set up the pilot facility in Ansbach with the goal of producing products faster than ever. At 4,600 m2 (49,500 ft2), the company says that it will house cutting edge, automated technology that will decentralize manufacturing and will be more flexible towards the needs of the consumers, bringing the product, not just faster, but also closer to the market. Currently, the Speedfactory is under construction, but as part of their announcement late last year, Adidas will be selling a test batch of about 500 pairs of running footwear produced by the facility this year.

In the 1990s, fashion's relationship with robots was the stuff of fantasy. On the runway of Alexander McQueen's imaginative Spring/Summer 1999 show, two robotic arms spray-painted a white dress worn by Shalom Harlow. Today, the industry's relationship with automation is much more practical. In the distribution centres of e-commerce giants like the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group and Amazon (which, in 2012, paid 775 million to acquire Kiva Systems, a manufacturer of robotic fulfilment systems used by Gap, Gilt Groupe and Saks 5th Avenue) software-controlled robots routinely navigate giant warehouses, picking and transporting inventory faster and more accurately than humans, enabling services like same-day delivery. "Automated storage and retrieval systems provide high storage density as well as inventory accuracy and management, yet require a smaller footprint," explains Steve Crease, director of operations at Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, which uses ASRS to deliver its "key service level" of same-day delivery.

German sportswear manufacturer Adidas announced Tuesday that it would resume production of shoes in Germany more than 20 years after it stopped making them in its home country. Completely overhauling the way it produces shoes, the world's second-largest sportswear maker said its new "Speedfactory" will use robots, as opposed to the manual process the company employs in its manufacturing hubs in Asia. In a statement, Adidas said "the first pairs of high-performance footwear to come out of the Adidas Speedfactory will be revealed later this year." However, the still under-construction "Speedfactory facility will begin large-scale production in 2017." The new production facility is being designed to speed up manufacturing and also bring it closer to the company's big European markets.