Focus/Manufacturing
China Snaps Up America’s Cheap Robot Labor
A Chinese T-shirt company is setting up shop in Arkansas, lured by U.S. sewbots and lower production costs.
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“Made in America” will soon grace the labels of T-shirts produced by a Chinese company in Little Rock.
By early 2018, Tianyuan Garments Co., based in the Suzhou Industrial Park in eastern China, will unveil a $20 million factory staffed by about 330 robots from Atlanta-based Softwear Automation Inc. The botmaker and garment company estimate the factory will stitch about 23 million T-shirts a year. The cost per shirt, according to Pete Santora, Softwear’s chief commercial officer: 33¢.