In the past month, Grabit has begun providing facilities that make Nikes with a handful of upper-assembling machines that can work at 20 times the pace of human workers. By the end of the year, about a dozen of these machines will be operating in China and Mexico. This could be a step forward in Nike’s attempt to change the economics of shoemaking so it can relocate manufacturing closer to the big consumer markets in the U.S. and Europe.

Pretty much every company that makes physical objects is interested in automation. Robotic arms have been doing much of the labor in car factories for years, and Amazon sponsors an annual contest to get academics to make robots smart enough to pick up objects they’ve never seen before. For Grabit, the partnership with Nike shows its work is catching the eye of the world’s more prominent apparel companies.

Despite its name, Grabit’s innovation isn’t based on having robots mimic the human-style grabbing motion. Instead, the company implements flat pads of electrodes that, when charged correctly, create an electric field that adheres to nearly any surface. This makes Grabit able to do things robot-hand companies are unlikely ever to conquer, says Greg Miller, Grabit’s chief executive officer. “The things we’re getting pulled into, we’re getting pulled into because they can’t be done another way,” he said.

Eoin Treacy's view

Automating the production of clothing and footwear represents a key objective of the textile trade but also poses one of the largest challenges for the labour market in newly industrializing nations they are ever likely to face.

The textile trade has always been among the most competitive globally and this has led the sector to seek out the lowest cost sources of labour since the time of the industrial revolution. That meant garment manufacturing was among the first industries to fuel development and urbanization in poor countries because of its reliance on a large pool of workers. Automation of this process represents a significant challenge for countries hoping to follow what had previously been a tried and trusted route to development.

China has already ceded some of its dominant position in garment manufacturing to even lower priced regions like Bangladesh, Vietnam and El Salvador while India is only beginning to ramp up its manufacturing sector. It is in China where the clearest drive to automate is evident, so it can hold onto as much of the manufacturing sector as possible. That represents a potent obstacle to the development of impoverished countries, particularly in Africa, which have been moving towards developing their own textile businesses over the last decade. 

From a broader perspective, the growth of the automation trend will likely shift the emphasis in manufacturing from labour costs to electricity, maintenance and shipping. That opens up the potential for manufacturing to be sited closer to major population centres which will be further enhanced by the trend of urbanization evident just about everywhere. Additionally, since automation is infinitely easier to customize than hand stitching we are only a few years away from fully customizable online shopping experiences. Coupled with social media that will revolutionise the garment industry by lowering barriers to entry for new designers and putting every more value in the creativity portion of the cost equation.