Footwear 3d Printing

[Quinton Hebenstreit]

FUSEDfootwear started in May 2017, when we put together our first 3D printer. We've since made several different designs, and have weartested our shoes extensively.

All our shoes are made to order, and are fully 3D printed

as one piece. They can be worn daily, just like regular shoes. Our shoes are also fully recyclable, so when they've worn out, please return them to us for a 20% discount.

Currently, footwear 3D printing revenues make up approximately 0.3% of global footwear market revenues, according to SmarTech Analysis. This figure is set to rise to 1.5% of overall global footwear revenues by 2029.

While this growth is encouraging, the actual figure is small when compared to the overall footwear market revenues. This indicates that 3D printing will not replace any of the established manufacturing processes anytime soon.

That said, 3D-printed footwear could become one of the largest segments in consumer products 3D printing. This evolution will primarily be driven by two key trends:

1. The growing consumer demand for personalised products;

2. An increased focus on digital manufacturing.

3D printing enables footwear brands to explore and implement new design features for shoes. Consider midsoles: traditionally, they are made as a solid piece with the same degree of support throughout the shoe.

With 3D printing, shoe performance can be substantially improved, thanks to the ability to create midsoles with lattice structures, which would be impossible to injection mould.

These structures can be designed to feature different densities within a midsole. By tuning different areas of a midsole, designers can optimise cushioning properties throughout the shoe, thus creating higher-performing footwear.

By combining new materials and digital manufacturing, 3D printing is opening the door for innovative footwear products.

Currently, the technology is facilitating the production of high-performance sports shoes and customised sandals through 3D-printed shoe components. This allows footwear brands to expedite time-to-market while exploring new designs and introducing greater customisation options.

Despite these benefits, the use of 3D printing in footwear remains limited, as the technology currently lacks the scalability to accommodate the intensive and high-productivity needs of the shoe industry.

That said, footwear 3D printing will continue to evolve, driven by the trends in digital manufacturing and the demand for personalised experiences.

Of course, adopting 3D printing will create some challenges in the footwear value chain, and addressing them will take time and effort. However, the reward in the form of unique product and service offerings may be well worth it. Ultimately, the footwear industry could become the first major adopter of 3D printing for mass production of consumer products.

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The inaugural 3D printed footwear conference and expo, planned in Barcelona for September, will feature some of the biggest names in 3D printed shoes, plus start-ups, showing off their footwear innovations and the manufacturing processes they developed to bring them to market.

Over the years, 3D printed shoes launched to fanfare, then seemingly faded away. Fashion house Dior sent models strutting down the 2023 Paris Fashion Week runway in $250 3D-printed versions of their classic Derby, which are no longer available.

One solution may be the emerging practice that centers on 3D printing as a service where 3D printing experts, such as the printer makers, offer brands a manufacturing platform or at the very least, an R&D partnership.

Many 3D printed shoes are made with industrial 3D printers, such as from US-based companies HP or Carbon, but the new platforms, including Zellerfeld, Fused Footwear, and others, are using far more affordable technology similar to consumer desktop 3D printers that can cost less than $1,000 each.

3D printing has previously been used mostly to prototype products in development before they were produced with traditional manufacturing techniques. 3D printers are generally not designed for manufacturing scale. Prints are often painfully slow, require wasteful part supports that are ultimately thrown in the trash, and use materials that are vastly inferior to those used for production, resulting in weak and brittle parts. For adidas, the 3D printing industry lacked the production-grade elastomers needed for a demanding athletic footwear application. As a result, while adidas could 3D print prototypes of their midsoles, the final midsole design was still constrained by the ultimate production process, i.e. injection and compression molding. To overcome this constraint and 3D print final midsoles, adidas turned to the Carbon DLS process, its factory-ready 3D printing method, and its high-performance materials to design and directly produce the next generation of athletic footwear. A trailblazing partnership had been forged.

Having developed production ready printers and materials, Carbon was finally obliterating the barriers to using 3D printing for manufacturing real products at scale. Leveraging our programmable liquid resin platform that uses light to set the shape and heat to set the mechanical properties, the Carbon team developed a proprietary print strategy for midsoles that enables printing with essentially zero support material. This not only saves on raw material costs, but also dramatically reduces manual post-processing steps of traditional additive manufacturing.

Footwear 3D printing is an advanced manufacturing process that utilizes additive manufacturing technology to create customized and highly precise shoe components or entire footwear products. The process involves depositing material layer by layer to build up three-dimensional shoe structures, which can include midsoles, outsoles, insoles, uppers, and other shoe components. Footwear 3D printing allows for the production of personalized and tailored shoes with intricate designs, optimized comfort, and enhanced performance characteristics. It offers benefits such as rapid prototyping, reduced material waste, and the ability to experiment with innovative materials and geometries, making it a disruptive technology in the footwear industry.

In terms of application diversity, PPG Industries leads the pack, while Kyoraku and Alpha MOS stood in the second and third positions, respectively. By means of geographic reach, NIKE held the top position, followed by Coats Group and Authentic Brands Group.

The revenue associated with 3D printed footwear currently makes up 0.3% of the total global footwear market revenue, according to the latest statistics from Smartech. Experts predict the figure will grow to 1.5% of overall footwear revenues, or $5.9 billion, by 2029.

The projected revenue increase demonstrates the continued adoption of additive manufacturing processes by footwear manufacturers. 3D printers have been available since the 1980s. However, many industries have only recently integrated 3D printing solutions into their production processes, as significant advances in machines, material, and software are not only meeting industry requirements but also enabling greater innovation with better performance production parts. Today many footwear companies use 3D printers to optimize design, prototyping, and full production.

Traditionally, footwear manufacturers have used injection molding to mass-produce different parts that make up a shoe. Workers take the various components and cut, glue, and stitch them together to form the final product. While traditional footwear manufacturing methods are still valuable for high volume production, many footwear companies are now leveraging 3D printers to create parts of a shoe.

The 3D printed parts last longer and enable higher performance and comfort compared to traditionally manufactured foam parts. 3D printing also provides greater design freedom and diversity in final product properties. For example, designers can create specific geometries and define where they are located, such as to provide greater cushioning in the heel and firmness in the arch.

3D printing technologies have the potential to improve nearly every part of a shoe. With better designs, 3D printing can amalgamate parts, eliminating assembly steps and creating more durable final products. Companies can also leverage 3D printers to improve the manufacturing process.

With a modern 3D printing solution, footwear companies can optimize prototyping, accelerate the time-to-market for finished products, and expand the possibilities of personalization and customization:

The rapid prototyping capabilities of 3D printers enable companies to compress development time and bring new products to market faster than with traditional methods. Early field testing with fully-functional prototypes ensures the product operates as intended and reduces potential market risks.

Production processes like injection molding cannot produce individualized products due to tooling constraints and set up time. Customers that need custom footwear require a specialist to hand make the product. With 3D printing, it is much easier, faster, and more consistent to make custom products.

If your company is looking to improve its operation with a 3D printing solution, LuxCreo can help. Our industrial printers and innovative materials enable footwear manufacturers to streamline the production of longer-lasting, high-performance products.

For more information on how our services can benefit those in the footwear manufacturing industry, visit our contact page or call (650) 336-0888.

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