Nike "transforming its supply chain" with 1000 collaborative robots

Nike says it is “transforming its supply chain” to meet the needs of its customers globally, and is investing in 1000 robots.

The company says that, in the wake of the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the past two years, Nike has “risen to the challenges and is seizing the opportunity to accelerate a transformation in its operations”.

To that end, Nike has been accelerating the opening of several regional distribution centres across the United States and Europe, largely because “consumers across all segments immediately shifted to digital engagement” because of lockdowns and other problems in visiting bricks-and-mortar shops.

“From early in the global pandemic, we knew that our recovery and return to growth would neither be linear nor intuitive,” said Andrew Campion, Nike chief operating officer. “We believed that the immediate and significant shifts we were seeing in consumer engagement would be systemic.

“So we took decisive action and began building a digital-first supply chain to power Nike’s more direct, faster and precise service of consumers, all while prioritising sustainability.”

He adds that Nike is building a digital-first supply chain globally to serve consumers more directly at scale, and claims it has tripled its capacity to serve digital consumers in North America and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

“The challenges and constraints imposed by the pandemic have driven our teams to transform how we serve consumers through the implementation of new technology platforms, automation and process improvement in our operations,” Campion said.

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Nike says it is leveraging technology to forward-position the products that consumers love most, and to deliver more quickly and precisely without compromising sustainability.

Within distribution centres, Nike says it has also deployed more than 1000 cobots to aid Nike workers in the sorting, packing and movement of products — increasing speed in order processing, alleviating physical challenges and allowing workers to focus on higher-value activities.

Image: Nike’s new highly automated distribution centre in Ham, Belgium.