Transforming
footwearmanufacturing
A short history

Case Study

ECCO was founded in 1963 by Birte and Karl
Toosbuy in Bredebro, Denmark. The company
is still family-owned and employs 21,400 people
worldwide. ECCO’s products are sold in 89
countries from over 2,180 ECCO shops andmore than 14,000 sales points. Part of ECCO’s
success is its vertical integration. Unlike any othermajor shoe brand, ECCO owns and manages
practically every step of the shoemaking process,from last making, mold making, leather tanneries,
shoe factories to retail stores. Shoemaking is anincredibly manual process, and Toosbuy always
saw ECCO’s factories as key to the company’ssuccess. This belief led to several automation
innovations over the decades in manufacturing
processes, including robotic technology, largescale assembly machines, and the adoption of
direct injection technology or DIP.

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DIP: fewer steps, less waste, better shoes
ECCO adopted Direct Injection Process (DIP) in
the pursuit of finding a more efficient and reliable
method to securely attach the upper part of a shoeto the midsole. A significant benefit of DIP is its
automatability. Today, the vast majority of ECCO
shoes are produced using DIP technology. The
traditional method of attaching a shoe’s upper to
its midsole is typically a manual process known as“stock-fit” manufacturing. First, the sole is molded,
and then later is assembled by hand and cemented
to the upper.
In the Direct Injection Process, the lasted upper
comprises the top portion of the mold. A two-component polyurethane is mixed and injected into
the mold to form the midsole while simultaneously
forming a strong bond to the upper. In addition toa possible reduction in labor during assembly compared with a cemented sole, bonding the midsole
to the upper during the molding process can resultin fewer pressure points and increased comfort.

Innovating on DIP with 3D printing
Typically, a footwear brand will create several
different design variations in multiple sizes during
a new shoe’s development, each requiring its own
mold. With high tooling costs and long lead times,
brands are limited to a few tooling iterations perdevelopment cycle.

Document
CaseStudyTitle HereThe R&D team at ECCO looked at several 3D
printing technologies to potentially improve andspeed up current product development processes.
A large opportunity was apparent in 3D printed
mold and last tooling that allows for conceptual
footwear samples to be reviewed early in thedevelopment cycle at a competitive price point.
3D printed molds need to meet tight tolerancesand produce shoes at the same quality andperformance as those made on CNC’d aluminummolds. The product should be indistinguishable
from a midsole made on a machined aluminum
mold. ECCO’s search for the 3D printed solution
explored numerous additive solutions available,
but only one option passed their initial tests: theStratasys Origin One.

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Case
StudyTitle Here

3D printedmolds and lasts
Early in the evaluation process, Origin One’s surface quality, print speed, accuracy, and ability toprint large cross-sections stood out from the alternative solutions which ECCO tested. In addition,
Origin works with leading resin partners to develop
next-generation materials, which were also criticalto ECCO’s needs. ECCO started working with theOrigin team in late 2018, testing several materials
printed on the Origin One. After narrowing thematerial choice down to a material from Henkel
Loctite, ECCO partnered with Henkel to further
iterate and reformulate a material family to meetthe specific requirements of the DIP process.

In addition to 3D printing molds with the Origin
One, the ECCO team can also print shoe lasts
using a different co-developed material fromHenkel Loctite. By 3D printing lasts on-site, ECCO
can achieve 24-hour turnaround of a complete setof DIP tooling.
During the next 12 months, ECCO acquired
multiple Origin One 3D printers in Denmark andPortugal for further testing and validation. The 3D
printed molds and lasts endured thousands ofshots, with zero visible degradation, and the lookof the shoe was on par with shoes produced on
traditional CNC machined aluminum molds. ECCO
designers could not tell the difference.

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The future ofDIP Tooling
By 3D printing the DIP molds, instead of machining
them, a single pair of mold inserts can be printed
overnight at a significant price saving over thatof an in-house CNC machined pair. This cost
and time reduction gives shoe designers more
freedom to have greater and faster iterationcycles. Designers and developers can wear test
functional shoes earlier in the development cycle,
allowing product groups to confirm fit and comfort
for new styles. Brands can more easily get real
production shoes in more varieties in front of theirpotential customers for feedback and pre-sale
opportunities. By situating Stratasys Origin One
printers in multiple locations, ECCO can quickly
produce molds in the location that needs them,eliminating the need to ship heavy metal molds anderadicating the risk of shipping delays or tariffs.
For the wider footwear industry that want to takeadvantage of 3D printed DIP tooling, ECCO has
a number of flexible routes to market with theability to assist with every aspect of footwear
manufacturing and moldmaking including
engineering, part production or licensing of IP.

Stratasys Headquarters

Case Study

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