At 91, shoe brand Warrior still has a spring in its step

Warrior, the 91-year-old Shanghai-based athletic shoe brand, has launched an online manufacturing plan that looks to upgrade the overall industrial chain with state-of-art technology, said its executive director.

"The online manufacturing plan will gradually automate and digitalize the whole process, including material selection, product research and development, and logistics to retail by 2020. We will try to find a future development mode for Warrior," Zhou Wei, executive director of Shanghai Warrior Shoes Co Ltd, said in an interview with China Daily on Friday.

In 2017, labor costs in China's rubber footwear industry rose 13.35 percent year-on-year, and are expected to rise more than 20 percent this year. Intelligent manufacturing is the answer to these ever-growing costs, according to Zhou.