If you don’t know how shoes are made, we can’t blame you since it isn’t exactly a process that many people are familiar with unless they are either curious or work in the industry. However according to Reebok, part of the process involves the use and creation of molds which is apparently both expensive and time-consuming.
This means that shoes aren’t churned out as fast as they could, which is why the company has announced Liquid Factory, a manufacturing process that involves the use of robots and 3D Drawing (similar in concept to 3D printing) with a liquid created specially by BASF to help create shoes without the need for molds. The end result is a pair of shoes that could potentially be created for a better fit, and also at a faster rate.
Liquid Factory is being led by Bill McInnis, the Head of Future at Reebok who was quoted as saying, “With Liquid Factory, we wanted to fundamentally change the way that shoes are made, creating a new method to manufacture shoes without molds. This opens up brand new possibilities both for what we can create, and the speed with which we can create it.”
“With this new process, we were able to program robots to create the entire shoe outsole, without molds, by drawing in layers with a high-energy liquid material to create the first ever energy-return outsole, which performs dramatically better than a typical rubber outsole.” Unfortunately Liquid Factory isn’t exactly producing these shoes at mass production speeds yet and there are only 300 pairs available right now. They are priced at $189.50 per pair and are available via Reebok’s website and FinishLine.
Filed in . Read more about 3D Printing and Wearable Tech.