Novel automated production system for the footwear industry

Abstract

The production process of most of the footwear companies working in the market segment of classic, casual, and fashion shoes is still handicraft. Moreover, the actual design and production processes are largely independent, and both of them need the physical prototypes of the semi-finished shoes in order to be accomplished. In this context, the IDEA-FOOT project introduces a new method for the shoe integrated design and production in which most of the production parameters are derived from the shoe 3D CAD model and an innovative automated production plant in which manipulators and automated machines are fully integrated. The aim of this paper is to present the main features of the automated plant, the advantages in using a new integrated design and production process, which is totally new for this market segment, and to analyze the impact of this new production model on the production performance and on the company organization. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.