Nike is testing a robot at its flagship retailer in London, which was designed to clean and repair old shoes. This robot is called BILL, standing for Bot Initiated Long Life Lab…
With the desire to make its mark on sustainability by making sneakers last as long as possible, Nike introduced a robotic lab for customers to clean and repair their favorite Air Force 1s, Air Jordan 1, Space Hippie 01 and Nike Dunks, completely free.
The way BILL works is also quite simple. When we want to clean a pair of shoes, we just need to feed it to the built-in special scanner and this robot will create a 3D model on the computer. From there, it will identify and notify the server exactly in detail which parts of the shoes need cleaning. BILL even gives the information of the damaged parts, so we can know what should be repaired.
There are many reasons behind the deterioration process of a pair of shoes. It can come from a fatal “wound”, but sometimes it’s just the result of the accumulation of many small scratches. Imagine, with BILL’s presence, once a week, we just need to bring our shoes in for inspection, then clean them at our convenience, and if there’s any damage, we can fix it right away. Surely the shoes will last forever.
Depending on the areas such as the upper, sidewalls and outsole, areas that need cleaning, BILL will deploy a variety of brushes, cleaning cloths and other tools to meet the needs. Once completed, Nike store employees will replace with new insoles and laces made from recycled materials to complete the refurbishment. Nike says that the robot takes about 45 minutes to process a pair of Air Force 1. Buyers can also choose stickers with unique, lovely shapes to fix on torn or scratched areas of the shoes.
Noah Murphy-Reinhertz, sustainability leader at Nike NXT, says cleaning old shoes is personal and people will spend more time caring for their favorite shoes. She added: “We see BILL as a tool to be able to do things that are hard to do by hand, but when we use robots as a part of our recycling technology, we still want the service to be personal.”
Unfortunately, at the moment, BILL can only clean 4 of Nike’s shoe models. In addition, this robot looks quite bulky, so it will not be suitable to be commercialized to each household in the near future. However, fans are arguing that if Nike took the effort to develop this robot, sooner or later, it will also “cover” the presence of the robot BILL in its stores.
Starting with a pilot during September, Nike hopes to gather valuable insights to support the company’s efforts to create a more personal connection between people and products without harming the environment. Nike says it will complement existing offers like Nike Refurbished and Nike Recycling and Donation, asking customers to deliver their old Nike sportswear so its parts can be reused in some ways.
Original article: https://vneconomy.vn/nike-dung-robot-de-keo-dai-tuoi-tho-giay-the-thao.htm