Category: Chapter 7

Posts relating to Chapter 7

OM in the News: Computer Vision Systems and the Start Up Nation

A Mobileye autonomous driving vehicle at the company’s HQ in Jerusalem

Israel (famously known as the Start Up Nation after the best-selling book by that title) has become a leader in one of the most promising frontiers in the technology world: computer vision. An area that has come of age this decade, it covers applications across dozens of industries that have one thing in common: the need for computers to figure out what their cameras are seeing, and the need for those computers to tell them what to do next.

Israel’s biggest success story is Mobileye, which uses a dozen cheap cameras to see the traffic around autonomous cars and then guides them through traffic. In 2017, Intel paid $15.3 billion to acquire the technology.

“Computer vision is the connecting thread between some of Israel’s most valuable and promising tech companies,” writes The Financial Times (Nov. 20, 2018). And unlike Israel’s traditional strengths— cyber security and mapping (Waze is another Israeli invention) — computer vision slides into a broad range of different civilian industries, spawning companies in agriculture, medicine, sports, self-driving cars, the diamond industry and even shopping. This lucrative field has benefited from a large pool of engineers and entrepreneurs trained for that very task in the Israeli military, where they fine-tuned computer algorithms to digest millions of pieces of surveillance.

Having built massive databases — from close-ups of farm insects to medical scans to traffic data — has given Israeli companies a valuable head start over other nations. And in an industry where every new image teaches the algorithm something useful, that has made catching up difficult. It has also created opportunities in unexpected sectors. Physimax uses a bank of cameras to analyze the posture of athletes, then suggests changes to their exercise routines and techniques. It is already being used by the US military and professional basketball and football teams. Zebra Medical uses AI to scan millions of MRIs from around the world, guiding radiologists to the slightest sign of disease. Trigo automates the checkout in grocery stores. Nexar analyses traffic and collision data from driver’s smartphones.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why are computer vision systems important to OM?

2.  Provide an example not discussed in the article of how the systems can be used in business.

 

 

OM in the News: The Fourth Industrial Revolution–Industry 4.0

A recent IndustryWeek survey (Nov. 6, 2018) found that manufacturers are having trouble joining the Fourth Industrial Revolution, called Industry 4.0. And the World Economic Forum (WEF) found that 7 out of 10 manufacturers fail in pushing initiatives in big data analytics, A.I., and additive manufacturing.

But there is hope, the Forum asserts. They scoured the planet and after vetting 1,000 manufacturers, selected 9 “lighthouses” (listed below) with a solid Industry 4.0 strategy. “These pioneers have created factories that have 20-50% higher performance and create a competitive edge,” says a McKinsey exec. “They have agile teams with analytics, IoT and software development expertise that are rapidly innovating.” Industry 4.0 is expected to deliver productivity gains over $3.7 trillion.

Bayer Biopharmaceutical: Italy. Most companies use less than 1% of the data they generate. Bayer makes the most of its data, leading to a 25% drop in maintenance costs and while gaining 30-40% in operational efficiency.

Bosch Automotive: China. Bosch uses data analytics to deeply understand and eliminate output losses, simulate and optimize process settings, and predict machine interruptions before they occur.

Haier: China. Use of AI facilitates a “user-centric mass customization model” with electronic products made on-demand. Maintenance needs are predicted before incurring downtime via AI.

Johnson & Johnson: Ireland. This hip and knee joint factory implements IoT, leading to a 10% reduction in operating costs and 5% drop in machine downtime.

Phoenix Contact: Germany. The electronics manufacturer relies heavily on customer-specific clones to cut production time for repairs or replacements by 30%.

P&G: Czech Republic. Production lines, in a plant built in 1875, seamlessly change the product being manufactured with a push of a button, an innovation that reduced costs by 20% and upped output by 160%!

Schneider Electric: France. Sharing of best practices across its multinational force allows each site to reap the benefits of the others, saving 10% on energy and 30% on maintenance.

Siemens: China. Leveraging augmented reality to create 3D simulations, Siemens has optimized its production lines with reduced cycle time and 300% jump in output.

Fast Radius: U.S. The lone U.S. company uses real-time analytics and globally positioned distribution 3D printing farms to maintain rapid turnaround times to deliver prototypes and custom parts.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is Industry 4.0?
  2. What do these 9 firms seem to have in common?

 

OM in the News: Maybe Robots Are Not Taking Over

“In the race between humans and robots, humans are often winning,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 3, 2018). Companies like Airstream, the maker of retro-cool, high-end trailers, find it more efficient to use a workforce of people, rather than make sizable investments in automation that risks being wasted if the economy slows.

Airstream’s factory in Ohio is racing to fill a backlog of orders that spans well into next year. It takes 8 workers climbing through an Airstream to bolt a hulking aluminum shell to a steel chassis, and snake fluid lines and wires through walls. To finish the shiny, silver capsule off, workers will need to install 3,000 rivets by hand. There’s not a robot in sight. They may speed production, but the machines require a substantial investment that risks being wasted if the economy slumps.

We’ll continue to see innovation in fields that are traditionally dependent on people. For example, grocery stores, which often struggle to find people to work for lower wages, are experimenting with robots. It could take decades, though, for these initiatives to meaningfully alter the employment picture. Robotics spending is forecast to equal $90 billion in 2018, a considerable increase compared to prior years, but it is only a sliver of the nearly $3 trillion committed to capital investment. An MIT prof adds: “There is a big debate on whether robots are really delivering on the productivity benefits they might promise.”

Companies appear to be trying to “optimize how they use people” rather than install more machines. For example, Ford spent nearly $1 billion converting the factory to go from making small cars to producing pickup trucks. Much of that went toward new tooling for stamping out body parts, but relatively little went toward adding automation. Artificial intelligence is now integrated into the final inspection lines to boost quality. But skilled workers are needed to interact with the AI tools.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why does Airstream prefer humans over robots?
  2. Where are robots making big impacts in American business?

OM in the News: From Reindeer to Robots, Automation Set to Deliver This Holiday

Warehouse robots created by GreyOrange resemble shelf-moving systems developed by Kiva Systems, now part of Amazon, but add AI to the technology

Never mind the reindeer and elves. This year, robots are helping deliver the holidays. Gap is using automated arms and AI to sort the retailer’s clothing orders. Walmart is testing robots that roam store aisles to check inventory and tell workers where to find goods. And logistics providers are sending mobile step-stools mounted with shelves through fulfillment centers to help pull online orders.

With the busy holiday peak looming, retailers and logistics companies are ramping up automation as surging demand for labor outstrips the number of available workers, reports The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 4, 2018). Much of the technology is being used in distribution operations, where workers are increasingly working alongside machines built to keep goods moving at a rapid pace. The use of robotics and other automation technology in industrial operations is growing, although the vast majority of warehouse work remains largely manual. About 16% of organizations across several industries including warehousing are now using commercial service robots, and 21% have them in pilot programs. Online fulfillment centers—where companies like Amazon pick, pack and ship consumer orders—require 2-3 times as many workers as traditional warehouses.

XPO said this week it is deploying 5,000 autonomous mobile units from GreyOrange at logistics sites across North America and Europe. The robots, which resemble Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaners, sync up with XPO’s warehouse-management software to help workers fulfill up to 48 orders at a time. The robots more than doubled the speed at which orders are processed and help the company keep better tabs on inventory. Logistics-industry interest in robotics is spreading as the technology gets cheaper and easier to adopt. Collaborative robots for example, can work safely alongside humans and be added quickly to existing sites without disrupting operations.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How are robots being used in retailers and warehouses?
  2. Why will robots not replace most warehouse workers?

OM in the News: Where Did Your Steak Come From?

Consumers around the world are demanding to know where their food comes from and how it was produced, increasing the pressure on processors to invest in new technology to stay ahead of the game, report The Herald (Sept. 3, 2018) and The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 3, 2018) With customer expectation for quality and value increasing, supply chains are expanding, and this is making them less transparent and harder to control.

Silicon dioxide particles are sprayed onto meat as it is packed. It is scanned at the point of sale to confirm the product’s authenticity.

Remember the scandal of 2013 when frozen beef products being sold in the UK and Ireland were found to contain traces of horse DNA? That same year it was revealed that a parmesan cheese being sold to Australian customers didn’t actually contain parmesan, but did include wood pulp. In 2015, $483 million of smuggled meat was seized by Chinese authorities, some of it was found to be up to 40 years old!

In a world-first for the food sector, PwC has developed an electronic etching procedure that creates an invisible, trackable barcode for beef based on edible, non-toxic silicon dioxide. Soon, it will be possible to point your smart-phone at a cut of beef to reveal the meat’s entire history including where it was raised, what it ate and when and where it was processed. The revolutionary beef-tagging technology is expected to be launched this year.

The procedure starts when sides of beef are sprayed with particles of silicon dioxide as fine as sugar. This natural, edible fingerprint, forms a crypto anchor that can be scanned using a hyper-spectrum gun. This shines a light onto the micro particles of silicon dioxide and refracts back a wavelength signature, or what PwC  calls “a unique serial number on a piece of steak”.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is this a supply chain issue?
  2.  How does this technology differ from blockchain?

 

OM in the News: Paying with “Wearables”

A cashier ‘thought it was some sort of scam,’ says the customer of his payment ring

Smartphones already have apps that let users tap to pay. Now banks and tech startups are developing “wearables” that can do the same thing—and can leave cashiers puzzling and curious onlookers quizzing the wearer, writes The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 24, 2018). Customers are paying with rings, watches, bracelets and key rings in a trial this year in the Netherlands by Dutch bank ABN. Barclays has a wearables service in the U.K., which, along with options such as key fobs and wristbands, offers stickers customers can use to turn almost anything into a payment device.

Bankwest, part of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, says it has sold some 10,000 rings at 39 Australian dollars each and hasn’t received complaints from confused businesses. About 400 Bankwest employees helped test a prototype of its ring and a key fob, bracelet and clip that goes onto a watch strap.  But ”no nose rings,” says the bank. Contactless payments are growing around the world, and industry analysts say Australia has been a big early adopter.

Yet paying by ring still confounds some Down Under. One ring-wearer working in mining logistics was at a cafe last month in a coastal tourist spot. The barista, seeing her payment go through with no visible card, thought she bought her coffee using the New Age technique of reiki, which purportedly involves energy passing through hands.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Will “wearables” be the new standard in 5 years?
  2. What are the advantages  from an OM perspective? Disadvantages?

OM in the News: Intel’s Chip Shortages

A shortage of high-end computer chips from Intel is being felt in other parts of the tech sector, reports The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 24, 2018). The question is how far it might spread.

Intel supplies the vast majority of CPU chips for the PC market today. Most are produced with circuitry measured at 14-nanometers—the most advanced manufacturing node Intel currently has in mass production. Intel has three facilities capable of producing chips at that level, but those facilities are also in high demand for the type of processors that power data centers, which is Intel’s business line with the best growth. Some of that capacity is also now going toward producing modem chips used in the latest generation of iPhones, which just hit stores.

Intel, in other words, has many demanding customers competing for a finite amount of manufacturing capacity. And while the company has already boosted its planned capital expenditure for the year by $1 billion, such facilities can’t be expanded quickly—especially while the company is struggling to shift some of its production to a new, more advanced 10-nanometer process. That makes it difficult to respond to rapid changes in the market, like the recent surprising jump in PC demand. Second quarter PC shipments grew globally for the first time in six years.

Server-chip demand is also booming, fueled mostly by capital spending from tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook, which are building data centers to power cloud-based services. Those four invested over $34 billion in the first 6 months of this year, up 59% from a year earlier.  Capital spending by big tech companies could slow if those they aren’t able to get enough server processors to meet their own expansion plans.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is Intel unable to fully meet current chip demand?
  2. Who are Intel’s main customers and what is Intel’s main product?

OM in the News: Vision-Automation Technology is Taking over the Factory Floor

 

Humans overseeing the toppings at a German frozen-pizza plant, a task now within the reach of technology.

Robots that see underpin the future of self-driving cars, humanoid robots and autonomous drones, writes The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 14, 2018). Now, food manufacturers are combining advances in laser vision with artificial-intelligence software so that automated arms can carry out more-complex tasks, such as slicing chicken cutlets precisely or inspecting toppings on machine-made pizzas.

Being able to see is a major frontier in robotics and automation—crossing it is key to autonomous vehicles that can navigate obstacles, humanoid robots that can more closely integrate with humans and drones that can fly more safely. Companies world-wide are investing in computer vision-based technology.  Intel recently bought Mobileye for $15 billion, in part for the Israeli company’s vision-based driver-assistance technology.

Food manufacturers have been early adopters of new technologies from canning to bread slicers, and vision automation has been used for years for tasks such as reading bar codes and sorting packaged products. Leaders are finding the technology valuable because robot eyes outpace the human eye at certain tasks. Now technical improvements, tougher materials and declining prices mean Tyson can integrate vision technology in its new $300 million chicken-processing plant. The technology helps optimize the use of each part of the bird.

Advances so far allow vision technology to ensure frozen pizzas have the correct toppings. Other applications include the ultrasonic slicing of cheese, cutting bread rolls with water jets and picking pancakes off a production line. Car makers, historically the biggest user of vision technology, are using it for emergency braking and scanning road signs; logistics companies deploy it to more quickly identify packages, and consumer electronics companies to position liquid-crystal display screens more precisely than is possible with the naked eye.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why are vision systems becoming an important OM tool?

2. Will driver-assistance technology really eliminate the need for drivers? Why? When?

 

OM in the News: Harley-Davidson Discovered “The Problem Was Us”

“As he struggled to save Harley-Davidson Inc. from financial ruin in the mid-1980s, Vaughn Beals got a bit of help from Uncle Sam in the form of temporary tariffs on imports of Japanese motorcycles,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 1-2, 2018). But the CEO’s success in preserving one of America’s strongest brands owed more to one of his insights: The real problem wasn’t the Japanese. It was Harley’s inefficient factories and slipshod quality.

As CEO for most of the 1980s, Beals, who passed away August 18th at age 90, declared war on defects, slashed production costs and aimed marketing at a colossal opportunity: Baby boomers, reaching middle age, were itching for a way to feel young and rebellious again, if only on weekends. “For years we tried to figure out why the Japanese were beating us so badly,” Beals said in 1988. “First we thought it was their culture. Then we thought it was automation. Then we thought it was dumping. Finally, we realized the problem was us, not them.”

Beals told workers to inspect every Harley motorcycle as it came off the line, rather only a sample, and sought suggestions from workers on improving quality. Meanwhile, Harley honchos toured Japanese plants and came back with ideas. Previously, Harley made parts in huge batches and stored them. Inventories were so bloated that workers sometimes couldn’t find a part by the time it was needed. Now the company began making parts only as needed, to match current motorcycle production.

As part of the effort to attract customers who didn’t fit the old Hell’s Angels image, Harley made the motorcycles more comfortable. It reduced vibration on touring bikes by mounting engines on rubber. One thing didn’t change: The rumbling sound from the tailpipe. “It makes your heart thump a bit,” said an Arizona dentist.

We feature Harley in our Global Company Profile in Chapter 7.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Describe Harley’s production process (see Ch. 7).
  2. What changes has Harley made over the past decades?

OM in the News: The Messy Business of Making Meal Kits

Employees package meal kits on an assembly line at a Sun Basket distribution center

Meal kits may make cooking easier, but getting a box of pre-portioned ingredients and instructions to a customer’s door is one of the most complicated OM riddles in the food business, writes The Wall Street Journal (July 27, 2018). Companies have poured millions into solving such questions as how to stack fish and fennel in boxes. They’re also investing in systems to reroute shipments during snowstorms and algorithms to predict what customers want to eat during the summer months. “It’s building a supply chain from scratch,” says the VP of Hello Fresh SE, the world’s largest meal-kit firm.

Meal-kit spending by consumers has grown three times as fast as spending in established food sectors such as restaurants and grocery stores since 2015. But companies have had to devise workarounds for everything from heavy weather to diverting trucks around highway accidents. At Home Chef, a sudden recipe change could set off a scramble to source ingredients at the last minute. “Building a perishable-food business is not something you do quickly or lightly,” said Sun Basket’s CEO. To help keep a lid on costs, Sun Basket has gone so far as to set up a Midwestern distribution center in a converted limestone cave—a cheaper way to keep its products cold than spending millions to convert a conventional warehouse in the region for refrigeration.

Adding to the complexity of the meal-kit business: Blue Apron, HelloFresh and others are now looking to supermarket sales to supplement subscription-only revenue. Chef’d was one of the first companies to push into supermarkets, but ran into trouble as it did so while also running a complex e-commerce operation that offered more than a 1,000 recipe choices. To survive, startups are scrutinizing each step of their operations. While some rely largely on manual labor, Blue Apron and Sun Basket are investing in automation, such as machines that dole out sauces or seal single-serving ingredients in tiny bags.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is this business complex from an OM perspective?
  2. What role can automation take?

OM in the News: Big Bets on the On-Line Home Delivery Grocery Business

Nine miles of conveyor belts within FreshDirect‘s new Bronx distribution center weave through the 400,000-square-foot warehouse

On a typical evening at online grocer FreshDirect LLC’s highly automated distribution center in NYC, workers fillet, wrap and label individual orders of swordfish and then push the packages on conveyor belts that run through the building. Trucked in that day from Nova Scotia, the fish might spend less than 24 hours there before hitting the streets bound for homes from Connecticut to Washington, D.C.

Designed to keep food fresh longer and move it faster, the operation is the online grocer’s multimillion-dollar bet on the fastest-growing sector in the grocery business. FreshDirect helped build the e-commerce home-delivery market, and now with Amazon and big grocery chains like Kroger piling on investments, companies are jockeying for position in the growing business, reports The Wall Street Journal (July 18, 2018). Amazon, Target and others have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to expand food delivery and build out their grocery e-commerce operations.  Peapod has expanded to 24 markets and is investing in technology to cut its handling and delivery costs. Walmart’s Jet.com will open a fulfillment center in NYC this fall to help roll out same day grocery deliveries there.

The grocers are trying to solve one of the toughest problems in home delivery: Getting food to doorsteps in the same condition consumers would expect if they went to the store themselves. Delivering perishables is tricky: Fruit bruises, meat spoils, eggs break. Botched deliveries can upend dinner plans, leaving customers angry, and hungry.

FreshDirect’s logistic hurdles start well before delivery. It must get products from its suppliers to the building, process the food, then pick, pack and ship orders before the quality degrades. So the new facility has 15 different temperature zones. Tomatoes do best at 55 degrees, but chicken and meat like it to be 32 degrees, which gives them more of shelf life.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. List each of the 10 OM decisions that FreshDirect is facing now?
  2. Why is NYC a hub of on-line groceries?

OM in the News: Retooling China

It isn’t clear how long it will take for the rest of China to follow Dongguan’s example.

Factories in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan once employed what one employee called a “magnificent sea of people.” But rising labor costs and a new generation of Chinese with little interest in toiling in factories forced a new tack, reports The New York Times (July 5, 2018). Now the sea of people is being replaced by a whirring array of boxy machines, each performing work that used to take 15 people. The factory changes suggests that Beijing’s vision of Made in China 2025 — the ambitious state-driven plan to retool China’s industries to compete in areas like automation, microchips and self-driving cars —is coming from the bottom up: from the businesses and cities across China that know they must modernize or perish. Dongguan long relied on making and exporting shoes, toys and electronic parts to the U.S. and Europe.

The average worker’s income rose fourfold over the past decade. Fewer young people wanted to work on dull and stressful assembly lines, preferring service jobs — like waiting tables and delivering e-commerce packages — that let them interact with people or move around. Some factories moved to lower-cost countries or shut down for good. Dongguan’s companies had to do something. They committed to modernizing.

Mentech, a telecom equipment supplier there, once had hundreds of workers winding, packaging and testing magnetic wires, all by hand. Today, the company is desperate for workers. On the side of one factory building it lists the on-the-job benefits it offers: monthly wages with overtime of up to about $1,100, air-conditioned dormitories, and free Wi-Fi.

Today, a factory floor that once needed over 300 workers now needs 100. More than half of the factory has been automated. The workers clustered around the machines will probably be replaced by machines themselves in a year or two. “The biggest trend in manufacturing is that automation is irreversible,” says a Chinese industry expert.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. In what ways has Chinese manufacturing paralleled the history of manufacturing in the U.S?
  2. Why are Chinese firms having trouble staffing their factories?

OM in the News: The Rise of the Cobot (Collaborative Robot)

 

The robotic arm at Mofongo’s Distillery in Holland helps bartenders and draws in curious customers

Robots are moving off the assembly line, writes The Wall Street Journal (June 11,2018). Collaborative robots that work alongside humans—“cobots”—are getting cheaper and easier to program. That is encouraging businesses to put them to work at new tasks in bars, restaurants and clinics. In the Netherlands, a cobot scales a 26-foot-high bar to tap bottles of liquor so that bartenders don’t need to climb ladders. In Japan, a cobot boxes takeout dumplings. In Singapore, robots give soft-tissue massages.

Cobots make up just 5% of the $14 billion industrial-robot market, but sales will jump to 27% of a $33 billion market by 2025 as demand for the robotic arms rises. About 20 manufacturers have started selling such robots in the past decade. Smaller businesses are using more cobots as labor costs rise. Artificial intelligence software is making it easier to teach them repetitive tasks. The latest models are sleeker and safer than their predecessors, which were often confined in cages to protect them from injuring nearby humans. Cobot arms brake when they touch humans, and don’t have “pinch points” that could snag fingers and skin.

“Robots are now crossing the chasm from a niche to a mass market,” said a Credit Suisse expert. He likened the current adoption of robotics to the introduction in the late 1990s of smaller handsets that launched mobile phones into wider use. The slew of newer cobot makers has driven down prices, providing buyers with alternatives that sell for $18,000-$26,000.

Still, cobots can’t do everything a person can. Robots are getting good at repetitive work, freeing up humans for other activities, but have a hard time with more complicated actions.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is the difference between a robot and a cobot?
  2. How are cobots an improvement over traditional industrial robots?

OM in the News: Japan’s Cow-Milking Robots

It’s milking time at the Kato farm in Japan, but when a Holstein ambles into the milking pen, nobody is there. A robot shoots out 4 arms and attaches a suction tube to each teat while she enjoys a tasty treat. Within 10 minutes, it is the next cow’s turn. The Kato family invested $2 million to build a shed that relies on a pair of $230,000 robots to milk some 90 cows and an $18,000 robot (the size of R2-D2) to help feed them. Here in Japan, 500 of the robots have been enlisted in recent years because human help is hard to find, reports The Wall Street Journal (May 7, 2018).

The milking robot is the size of a small truck. Before milking, a unit extends under the cow and cleans her udder; tubes carry the milk to a refrigerator. The machine also checks the cow’s identity from tags on her ears and stores data on each cow’s production. Kato said he was working from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day before introducing the robots. Now the cows in the robot shed require only 3-4 hours a day of care.

Getting robots to milk Elsie-san is the kind of investment that just might rescue Japan. The country is struggling to deal with its declining population, and there is a problem even with those who are still working: They are only about 2/3 as productive as Americans, on average. Agriculture is at the bottom of the heap, with the average American farmer producing 40 times as much as the average Japanese farmer. Now a labor crunch is forcing Japanese businesses of all sizes to step up capital spending on robots and other information technology to speed everyday tasks such as delivering packages and taking sushi orders at conveyer-belt restaurants.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is farm productivity much higher in the U.S. than in Japan?
  2. In what other areas can Japan turn to robotics to replace an aging workforce?

 

OM in the News: Tech + Fast Fashion = Mass Customization

A computer screen showing a 3-D body scan with body measurements in custom software

Style trends are moving faster than ever in an age when a shopper can spot an outfit on Instagram and buy it with just a few clicks, writes The Wall Street Journal (April 10, 2018). That immediacy is prompting the fashion industry to experiment with a business model called “click, buy and make.”

Today, Hong Kong clothing maker Bespokify’s customers, anywhere in the world, can order professional women’s clothing. Customers input their measurements, generating a digital pattern for clothes manufactured in China, and receive their orders within 2 weeks of purchase.

“Consumers are now shopping 24 hours a day and are being trained to expect new styles all the time,” says an industry analyst. Big retailers also are looking into the click-buy-and-make model. A year ago, Amazon won a patent with which it could take a customer’s order, print a pattern on fabric and send it to be cut by a robot before being assembled by another robot.

Hong Kong’s Li & Fung Ltd., one of the largest supply chain managers in the global garment industry, thinks new technologies could ultimately mean that more companies would be able to place small orders and avoid being stuck with extra inventory. “Just look at the average size of orders—it’s been going down for years,” its CEO said. “It went from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. And it will keep going down until it approaches a unit of 1.”

Software and robotics have been in use in fashion for some years. Companies like Proper Cloth use technology to predict a customer’s ideal shirt measurements without having to measure them in person.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is keeping this technology from wider use?
  2. Name some other industries moving toward mass customization.