Local Speed Factories: when the need for speed is vital In the 1990s, Adidas moved its entire production to low-wage countries in Asia, but in 2015 it re-opened highly automated Speed Factories in Germany and recently also in the US. These factories are only responsible for a few per cent of Adidas’ total yearly production, but they guarantee extra short delivery times. Why are Adidas and other companies moving a small share of their manufacturing activities back home? Professor Robert Boute and some of his colleagues developed a unique algorithm to answer this question. Read more
What are the challenges for cryptoeconomics? Hard rock, metal and punk. The organisers consciously chose this music to introduce the speakers at “Cryptoeconomics”, the first FinTech Futures session of the academic year. “In a sense, the people who study crypto or cybereconomics really are the hard rockers, the metalheads and punks of the FinTech community. They like to disrupt the status quo and the existing business models,” says Professor Bjorn Cumps, who hosted the event. The speakers demonstrated that blockchain technology and “crypto” or “cyber” have gradually penetrated across various sectors and are here to stay. Read more