Customization of consumer goods: First steps to fully customizable fashionable ladies′ shoes

The production of fashionable footwear has basically been the same for almost a century. It consists of combining elements of various materials together around a physical shape – the last – and thereby making a product around the foot – the shoe. This process requires different stages in production, transport of semi-finished products, intermediate components etc. In the project “CEC-made-shoe*” one of the tasks has been defined as to develop a product concept based on radically transforming this process, avoiding transport, complex logistics, long lead times, components like lasts, stiffeners etc. and with the possibility to personalise the shoe. This task is fulfilled in a research project in which the production of footwear is approached from the Rapid Manufacturing (RM) point of view. Such a new approach to footwear requires a lot of back-ground knowledge of footwear requirements, production process, material properties and design opportunities