The new 3D printing process doesn't just have the edge over traditional 3D printing. Somebody with the same size will run or walk differently (from you). You get “some sort of physical assessment, whether it’s your fit or movement specifications, that translates to your actual needs. “That’s how retail will be shaped in the future,” with this experience at a store, he said. The new printing process is also "100 times faster" than that of traditional 3D shoe printing, Carnes said. That means Adidas could eventually experiment with scanning consumers’ feet in stores and gathering data like their gait for personalized shoes.
ADIDAS 4D ORIGINAL PRICE SOFTWARE
Any design can be tweaked - and customized - and fed to be printed through a cloud-based software model. In contrast, Carbon’s “Digital Light Synthesis” technology uses light and oxygen to make plastic objects like the sneaker midsoles from a pool of resin, without any messy waste or need for injection molding.
How? Carnes, a 22-year Adidas veteran, described Carbon’s technology as "night and day" from the traditional 3D-printing process that requires injection-molding and uses laser to harden powder polymer, a process he said could be "messy." Adidas is no stranger to 3D printing and has used it to make prototype shoes for some 16 years, but various forms of traditional 3D printing technology could never have been applied for mass production because of the time and cost it would have involved, Carnes said. What’s at stake? As retailers and brands fight to sell products that meet consumers’ individual needs, shorten the so-called product cycle time, and create an “on-demand” model to make merchandise close to when there's demand to reduce excess inventory risk, Carnes said Carbon's technology will help Adidas accomplish all of those goals. The new 3D business will be profitable by the time volume hits 100,000 pairs this year, Carnes said.
It also isn't just a vanity sales project. While the new 3D shoe’s price tag isn’t any demand deterrent thanks to a healthy appetite for Adidas's premium performance products, Carnes said Adidas may be able to cut the shoe price once production volume reaches a certain mass level. “We are talking about starting small,” he said. It took just 11 months from the time Adidas and Carbon first met before Futurecraft 4D's January.
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