Can running shoes be made by a twig gun? That is the concept behind LightSpray, a brand new manufacturing method created by Swiss sneaker firm On.
“It permits us to supply an higher materials in a very automated approach,” mentioned Marc Maurer, On’s former co-CEO who not too long ago left the corporate. “A standard product is touched by roughly 200 fingers, which could be very totally different right here.”
The higher a part of the shoe is shaped as a robotic sprays an artificial materials referred to as polymer onto a rotating foot-shaped mildew. The method takes about three minutes per shoe. The ultimate product does not have seams or laces and suits like a sock.
“What we wish to have the ability to do is to convey it from a few thousand pairs to tens of millions of pairs,” mentioned Maurer.
The corporate introduced this month that it’s opening its first LightSpray manufacturing unit in Zurich that includes 4 of the robots.
Analysts mentioned improvements like LightSpray have given On a competitive edge. So how does it work?