ATLANTA — February 1, 2018 — SoftWear Automation announced today the newest SEWBOT® workline is available for global pre-order. The Digital Footwear Upper Workline expands the patented SEWBOT® Pick-Place-Sew™ automation for fully-automated shoe uppers.
In 2017, the SoftWear Automation team went to Waalwijk, the Netherlands, to speak on the future of footwear. Waalwijk is a small Dutch town with more than 400 related footwear businesses including a tannery. It used to be the global epicenter for footwear given its proximity to the world’s largest port, dense forests and endless cows. Today, retail is almost all that’s left there. It’s a familiar story in manufacturing where jobs go to the lowest wage providers.
However, the story continues to evolve as supply side pressures mount; the industry doubles its efforts to focus on country sourcing strategies and places the customer experience on the back burner. With the launch of SoftWear’s Digital Footwear Workline it aims to put the “future of WOW” (put customer experience first) in a local supply chain on par with country sourcing.
The “future of WOW” in apparel and footwear manufacturing is how SoftWear produces a sewn good on demand with great variety, speed, quality, and low cost; and delivered to the customer within 3 days.
To enable this future, SoftWear is focusing on automation that can work without templates, without adhesives, and that is built with lean manufacturing at its core. SoftWear’s SEWBOT® workline for footwear uppers requires just one operator for four or more worklines, and is not subject to dye cutter imperfections, size, style or most material changes. Load in the vamps and overlays and sewn shoe uppers come out the other end.
With 70 percent of labor in the sewing and construction of the upper and 18 months from forecast to delivery, SoftWear’s worklines automate the most labor intensive part of a shoe and provide the cost and flexibility to produce goods anywhere in the world on demand.
Posted February 2, 2018
Source: SoftWear Automation
