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UpFront
UpFront with CreateMe
The Factory That Learns:
Rethinking Apparel Manufacturing Through Robotics and AI
By Joe Altieri, FIT Adjunct Professor, Mentor, Educator, and Trainer
For generations, the apparel factory has been defined by a familiar image: monolithic brick buildings, rows of sewing machines, and operators manually manipulating fabric through the many stages required to turn material into a garment. That was the factory we inherited.
Now imagine something very different.
A manufacturing facility that looks less like the traditional garment factory and more like a highly controlled manufacturing environment. Instead of rows of operators manipulating fabric by hand, technicians monitor machinery. Robotics, artificial intelligence, vacuum, pressure, heat, time, and bonding work together to construct garments.
This is the vision being developed by CreateMe in California's East Bay.
CreateMe Founder and CEO Cam Myers
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Founded in late 2019, CreateMe entered the market at a time when the vulnerabilities of America's dependence on imported goods were becoming increasingly apparent. For Cam Myers, the first rounds of U.S. tariffs further exposed the weaknesses of a supply chain heavily dependent on overseas production.
For Campbell “Cam” Myers, CreateMe's co-founder and CEO, that environment helped reinforce an opportunity to rethink how manufacturing could be done. Myers brings a strong technology and e-commerce background to the challenge. His perspective is different from that of someone who entered apparel through a traditional manufacturing career.
That difference matters.CreateMe isn't simply trying to put a robot where a sewing operator once stood. It is asking a more fundamental question: Can the apparel manufacturing process itself be redesigned for automation?
The Problem Is the Fabric One of the most persistent obstacles to apparel automation has always been the material itself. Fabric is not static. It moves, stretches, folds, collapses, and changes shape as it is handled. A robot can perform highly precise movements when working with rigid and predictable materials. Apparel presents an entirely different challenge. A skilled operator instinctively compensates for those characteristics. A machine does not. CreateMe approached the problem through a different lens. Rather than simply attempting to make robots better at manipulating fabric, the company developed a process designed to control the material. Vacuum is used to help stabilize the fabric. Bonding combines adhesives with pressure, heat, and time. Robotics and AI then operate within that controlled environment. The distinction is important. The objective isn't simply to automate sewing. The objective is to change the manufacturing environment so that automation becomes possible. During our conversation, Myers described testing the process across different fabric classifications, including polyester, cashmere, and wool. CreateMe has developed a library of more than 100 fabrics, according to Myers, and he described testing in which bonded garments showed no delamination following dry cleaning. Those results will ultimately have to be demonstrated repeatedly in commercial production. But the breadth of material experimentation illustrates the problem CreateMe is trying to solve. If fabric is the obstacle, understanding and controlling the fabric becomes fundamental to the solution. Starting With the Basics CreateMe's initial applications are not necessarily the complicated fashion products one might associate with the future of apparel technology. The company has found that women's intimates make particular sense for its initial manufacturing approach. The garments are, in some respects, basics. But Myers doesn't view that as a limitation. It is a starting point. CreateMe currently works with about 20 clients it manufactures for. The company is developing a model in which it provides manufacturing services rather than simply selling technology to a customer and asking that customer to figure out how to implement it. That makes CreateMe something more than a technology supplier. The company sees itself as a vertical supplier, controlling significant portions of the manufacturing process. It develops fabrics and processes, cuts materials, and uses its bonding and automation systems to assemble the garments. That approach also provides something that cannot be replicated easily in a laboratory: production experience. Manufacturing has a way of exposing problems that demonstrations don't. Materials behave differently. Equipment requires maintenance. Quality requirements become real. Production schedules have consequences. And the economics have to work. From Operators to Technicians Myers described a very different vision of the apparel factory. Not the old, dusty, poorly lit factory dependent on rows of operators performing repetitive manual operations, but a modern manufacturing environment staffed by technicians who monitor and manage automated systems. That doesn't necessarily mean people disappear from manufacturing. It means the nature of the work changes. The traditional apparel operator's knowledge has often been embedded in the physical manipulation of fabric—knowing how much tension to apply, how to position material, how to compensate for variation, and how to recognize when something isn't right. An automated factory still needs that knowledge. It simply may reside differently. The technician of the future may need to understand equipment, software, materials, quality, and production flow simultaneously. This is an important distinction as the apparel industry considers the role of AI and robotics. Automation does not eliminate manufacturing knowledge. It changes where that knowledge is applied. The Factory That Learns CreateMe describes its vision in particularly interesting terms: the factory doesn't just make. It learns. Every production run can generate information about products, materials, and processes. That information can become part of a feedback loop, allowing the system to improve with subsequent production. This is where artificial intelligence becomes more than a marketing term.AI is not operating in isolation. It is being connected to a physical manufacturing environment. The material behaves in a certain way. The machine responds. The production process generates data. That information can be evaluated and incorporated into subsequent runs.
The Problem Is the Fabric One of the most persistent obstacles to apparel automation has always been the material itself. Fabric is not static. It moves, stretches, folds, collapses, and changes shape as it is handled. A robot can perform highly precise movements when working with rigid and predictable materials. Apparel presents an entirely different challenge. A skilled operator instinctively compensates for those characteristics. A machine does not. CreateMe approached the problem through a different lens. Rather than simply attempting to make robots better at manipulating fabric, the company developed a process designed to control the material. Vacuum is used to help stabilize the fabric. Bonding combines adhesives with pressure, heat, and time. Robotics and AI then operate within that controlled environment. The distinction is important. The objective isn't simply to automate sewing. The objective is to change the manufacturing environment so that automation becomes possible. During our conversation, Myers described testing the process across different fabric classifications, including polyester, cashmere, and wool. CreateMe has developed a library of more than 100 fabrics, according to Myers, and he described testing in which bonded garments showed no delamination following dry cleaning. Those results will ultimately have to be demonstrated repeatedly in commercial production. But the breadth of material experimentation illustrates the problem CreateMe is trying to solve. If fabric is the obstacle, understanding and controlling the fabric becomes fundamental to the solution. Starting With the Basics CreateMe's initial applications are not necessarily the complicated fashion products one might associate with the future of apparel technology. The company has found that women's intimates make particular sense for its initial manufacturing approach. The garments are, in some respects, basics. But Myers doesn't view that as a limitation. It is a starting point. CreateMe currently works with about 20 clients it manufactures for. The company is developing a model in which it provides manufacturing services rather than simply selling technology to a customer and asking that customer to figure out how to implement it. That makes CreateMe something more than a technology supplier. The company sees itself as a vertical supplier, controlling significant portions of the manufacturing process. It develops fabrics and processes, cuts materials, and uses its bonding and automation systems to assemble the garments. That approach also provides something that cannot be replicated easily in a laboratory: production experience. Manufacturing has a way of exposing problems that demonstrations don't. Materials behave differently. Equipment requires maintenance. Quality requirements become real. Production schedules have consequences. And the economics have to work. From Operators to Technicians Myers described a very different vision of the apparel factory. Not the old, dusty, poorly lit factory dependent on rows of operators performing repetitive manual operations, but a modern manufacturing environment staffed by technicians who monitor and manage automated systems. That doesn't necessarily mean people disappear from manufacturing. It means the nature of the work changes. The traditional apparel operator's knowledge has often been embedded in the physical manipulation of fabric—knowing how much tension to apply, how to position material, how to compensate for variation, and how to recognize when something isn't right. An automated factory still needs that knowledge. It simply may reside differently. The technician of the future may need to understand equipment, software, materials, quality, and production flow simultaneously. This is an important distinction as the apparel industry considers the role of AI and robotics. Automation does not eliminate manufacturing knowledge. It changes where that knowledge is applied. The Factory That Learns CreateMe describes its vision in particularly interesting terms: the factory doesn't just make. It learns. Every production run can generate information about products, materials, and processes. That information can become part of a feedback loop, allowing the system to improve with subsequent production. This is where artificial intelligence becomes more than a marketing term.AI is not operating in isolation. It is being connected to a physical manufacturing environment. The material behaves in a certain way. The machine responds. The production process generates data. That information can be evaluated and incorporated into subsequent runs.
CreateMe’s Modular-Engineering Robotic Assembly system at the company’s manufacturing facility in Newark, California. Physical AI has progressed to the point where it can control robots that do somewhat limited tasks, said CreateMe CEO Cam Myers.
The factory becomes part of the intelligence loop. But there is an important question behind that concept: What does the factory actually learn?
• It learns about materials.• It learns about processes.• It learns about variation.• It learns about quality.• And, ultimately, it learns from the accumulated experience of manufacturing.
That is a very different proposition from simply putting an AI application into an existing apparel factory.
From Manufacturing Service to Commercial System
For now, CreateMe's strategy is to operate the manufacturing capability itself and provide manufacturing services to customers.
But Myers also described a longer-term possibility: commercializing the systems beyond CreateMe's own production operation.
The company is therefore facing a second manufacturing challenge. It isn't enough to develop a technology that works. CreateMe has to determine how that technology can become a scalable business.
That could eventually mean expanding beyond its own vertically operated manufacturing model and offering aspects of the system more broadly through commercial relationships.
The company has already begun moving in that direction as it builds out its commercial capabilities. But the significance is not simply that CreateMe is looking for customers.
The more interesting question is what exactly it will commercialize.
• A machine?• A manufacturing line?• A complete production system?• A technology platform?• Or some combination of all four?
The answer may evolve as CreateMe gains experience operating the system itself.
The Million-Unit Test
CreateMe's ambitions extend well beyond proving that a robot can assemble a garment. The company is targeting production of approximately one million units, using three lines operating three shifts per day, five days a week, with eight-hour shifts.
That target changes the conversation. At that level, the question is no longer: Can the technology make a garment?
The questions become much more familiar to anyone who has actually operated a factory.
• What is the SAM?• How many minutes of labor are required?• What is the cost per unit?• How much capital is required to establish a production line?• How many technicians are needed?• What happens when equipment goes down?• How quickly can production recover?• How is quality controlled?• What happens when the material changes?
And perhaps the most important question: Do the economics work?
These are the questions that will determine whether CreateMe's technology becomes an interesting demonstration or a viable model for domestic apparel manufacturing.
More Than Automating Sewing
There is a tendency to frame the future of apparel automation as a simple equation: AI + robotics = fewer workers.
CreateMe presents a more complicated—and potentially more interesting—possibility.
The company isn't simply trying to replace the human being who operates a sewing machine. It is reconsidering the relationship between material, process, machinery, software, and people. Fabric has always been one of the reasons apparel manufacturing resisted automation on the same scale as many other industries.
CreateMe is attacking that problem at the process level.
Vacuum stabilizes the material. Bonding changes how pieces can be joined. Heat, pressure, and time become manufacturing variables. Robotics provide repeatability.
AI provides the potential to learn from production. And people remain responsible for designing, monitoring, maintaining, and improving the system.
That is not the elimination of manufacturing knowledge. It may be a different way of applying it.
Rethinking the Factory
America doesn't need to recreate the apparel factories of the past exactly as they were.• The economic conditions are different.• The workforce is different.• The technology is different.• The supply chain is different.
And the expectations surrounding speed, customization, and responsiveness are different.
The question, therefore, isn't whether we can bring back the factory exactly as it existed decades ago. The question is whether we can build a different kind of factory for the conditions we face today.
CreateMe is attempting to do that from the ground up. It is still early.
The company has production targets to achieve, economics to prove, quality standards to demonstrate, and a technology platform that ultimately has to work outside the controlled environment of development.
But that is what makes the experiment worth watching. Because perhaps the most important innovation isn't the robot. It isn't the adhesive. It isn't even the AI. It is the willingness to ask whether the way we have always constructed clothing is still the best way to construct clothing.
For more than a century, the apparel factory has been organized around people manipulating fabric.
CreateMe is asking what happens when we organize the factory around controlling the material, automating the process, and allowing the manufacturing system to learn from what it produces.
The factory doesn't just make. It learns.
And if CreateMe can make that proposition work economically and at scale, it may give domestic apparel manufacturing something it has been missing for decades: a new model for what a factory can be.
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