When that is complete, anyone who has a PC will have access to a lot of information. Outer soles have unique tread designs for different types of shoes and surfaces. A competitive advantage New Balance has always prided itself upon is multiple widths. That requires additional precision in manufacturing. Over the past three years, IT techniques and solutions have also reduced the time it takes to make a pair of shoes from 45 minutes to 25 minutes or less.
Computerized machines perform cutting, injection molding, and stitching.
Gardner says that IT has helped plan manufacturing operations better. A shoemaker used to spend 90 percent of his or her time waiting for something to happen, and 10 percent working on a shoe. Now it's the other way around. The process is improved, flexibility is way up, and so is productivity. All are cross-trained, so that even during the day they will switch off on jobs so that no one has to work on the same thing all the time.