"Intelligent Manufacturing" Enables New Consumption Of Personalized Shoe Industry

Jointly created by China Central Radio and television and the Ministry of industry and information technology, and launched by the financial program center, the large-scale financial media report "smart China" entered Fujian Province today. Textile, footwear and clothing industry is a traditional advantage industry in Fujian Province. Putian, Fujian Province, is also known as "China's shoe city". It is said that one pair of shoes is produced in Putian for every 10 pairs of shoes produced in China. In order to make a pair of shoes on consumers' feet, what kind of solutions will intelligent manufacturing give?

The reporter came to the factory store of a shoe-making enterprise in Putian, Fujian Province. I heard that shoes can be measured and customized on a large scale.

Here, there is a foot big data acquisition and analysis instrument, which is jointly developed by manufacturers and scientific research institutes. In 15 seconds, it can automatically measure and analyze 54 items of data of feet and recommend suitable shoes.

Staff told reporters that a pair of shoes as soon as 2 hours can be produced. After placing the order, the data is immediately transmitted to the central control system of the factory, and the system immediately arranges production. This link alone has broken the traditional limit of minimum order quantity, and the production of a pair of shoes can be arranged without a substantial increase in cost.

A pair of shoes needs to go through multiple processes such as upper, sole and last shaping. A group of high-speed weaving looms are running automatically. The reporter noticed that the yarn color of each machine is different, and the system will intelligently split the orders with different patterns and assign them to the specified machines for production.

Then, the AGV car in the workshop sends out the semi-finished products to the next process. Here, the connection between processes depends on unmanned logistics to improve a lot of efficiency, and the maximum production of 1000 pairs of customized shoes in 10 hours. AGV car comes to the next process, accessories assembly. The upper, tongue and other parts will be put into a basket with RF chip. The chip will always accompany the order to realize the whole process traceability. Human machine relay cooperation, then into the last matching link.

So, how can shoe last be customized? In fact, the principle is that through the data measured by the client, 5 to 9 high, short, fat and thin sub shoe sizes are automatically matched for each shoe size, which greatly reduces the customization cost. In this step, the manipulator in the octagonal shelf will select the shoe last corresponding to the order from more than 500 shoe lasts and hand it to the workers for shaping. This is also the most critical step.

The next step is the delivery of finished products. Different from regular production lines, every pair of shoes here is different. As soon as the shoes come out, they will be packed and delivered. With the characteristics of on-demand production and instant delivery, the factory has realized zero inventory of finished shoes, and solved the enterprise's inventory pain point.

(source: CCTV finance and economics, Tianxia finance and Economics)