Sicur 2008: Customised footwear

Sicur 08: Panter has designed some safety footwear for customers who have specific problems or characteristics. The company from Alicante, Industrial Zapatera S.A., manufacturer of safety footwear under the brand name Panter, has developed personalised footwear for professional use within the safety at work setting for special cases with workers who have feet with problems or special characteristics.

It is an integrated system for the personalisation of footwear and insoles, for customers, for example, who suffer from "diabetic foot" or any other type of malformation. In this way, Industrial Zapatera is trying to supply 100% of the market that previously could not be supplied as around 5 to 10% of the population suffer from these types of problems. This has been achieved thanks to the application of a series of tools and protocols aimed at obtaining the shoe model that best adapts and fits the customer, in accordance with the measurements obtained from their feet and their preferences regarding footwear design. In addition to this, and using the same initial information, the design and 3D manufacturing of a personalised insole is tackled. The personalisation process of the footwear and the insole is based on several aspects:
- The acquisition of the 3D geometry of the customer's foot.
- Obtaining the characteristic measurements for a set of digital lasts that define a consistent relationship between the foot and the last.
- The comparison between the foot measurements and the measurements of the set of lasts.
- The selection by the customer of the suitable safety shoe model.
- The subsequent management of the order and manufacturing order for the production of the pair of personalised shoes.
- The design and manufacturing of a three-dimensional insole that meets the specifications/prescriptions.
To develop this project, Industrial Zapatera has relied on the help and services of the company TPSP S.L., which has offered its experience and services on topics related to foot health. The process to personalise the footwear may be initiated either at the sales outlet with the digitalisation of the customer's foot or by sending the plaster mould delivered to the company by the professional in question. The 3D Foot Digitalizer complies with the premises of low cost and reduced scanning time. With a viewing area of 160x120 mm and a useful passage of 400 mm the foot is digitalised in 8 seconds, obtaining an exit file in ASCII format with X, Y, Z coordinates organised by vertical sections that are parallel to each other, with an accuracy above 1 mm. The complete process of digitalisation and generation of exit files may take 30 seconds and the size of this file ranges between 500 and 700 K approximately. It is the most economical autonomous digitalizer in the system. The current most economical systems need a continuous link with the operator and an added cost for each of the digitalisations that are performed. In this case, the software itself makes the calculations and identifies the characteristic points automatically and extremely quickly. The automatic obtaining of the foot measurements is performed using a specific application, thanks to which the characteristic measurements of the foot necessary for the personalisation of the footwear are obtained.
After obtaining the foot measurements, the last model is selected. The data obtained from the digitalisation of the foot is sent by the Internet to Industrial Zapatera for processing. Using the characteristic measurements of the foot obtained in the previous phase and the footwear model previously selected by the customer, this data is compared with an extensive and complete database of lasts available to the company, with the result of obtaining the last that best adapts to the customer's requirements.
Once the last and the model's specifications have been selected, the manufacturing process of the personalised footwear that will be supplied to the customer will be initiated. Thanks to the automation of the process, the maximum period from the taking of the measurements by the specialist to the reception of the footwear requested by the customer is only two days, (the average using traditional methods being around ten days), obtaining a product completely adapted to the customer's requirements.
In those cases where, due to the pathology of the customer's foot a standardised last cannot be used, a new last will be developed suitable for the patient. The fact of having the data from the digitalised foot helps the last manufacturer in the quick, accurate design and manufacturing of the new last, using the adaptation of pre-existing lasts to the measurements of the customer's foot.
Finally, the insoles are designed. In order to obtain a complete personalisation of the footwear, Industrial Zapatera S.A. designs and manufactures insoles adapted to the selected footwear model, taking into account the customer's pathologies in the cases where this is necessary. Using a set of between 10 and 12 parameters taken from the digitalisation, a 3D insole may be quickly designed automatically in under 2 minutes, for its mechanisation using the appropriate sources. It is a development that offers a complete solution in the foot health and safety field. To manufacture the insole, Industrial Zapatera has numerical control lathes that operate using the data provided by these same programmes.
The integration of the entire footwear personalisation process is performed using a web computing system, in such a way that greater functionality and efficiency is obtained, making the footwear selection process independent to the management and manufacturing process.

Added value
The main result is the obtaining of a clearly differentiable, innovative product that is totally adapted to the needs and preferences regarding fashion and safety established by the customer so that industrial Zapatera can supply and respond to a segment of the market that it previously had no access to, due to the difficulty of personalising the footwear owing to the real idiosyncrasy and particularity of this group. Furthermore, the shoes are personalised, making them unique for each particular case and each customer. This shoe, included in the safety at work field, is not incompatible with design and comfort.