Materialise
Materialise ski boot insole
A ski boot insole mid-print.
Materialise has announced a partnership with Tailored Fits, a winter sports gear and footwear specialist, to establish a digital supply chain for the custom-fit ski boots.
Customers will now be able to have their feet scanned by Tailored Fits’ speciality sporting goods retailers within ten minutes. And within ten days, thanks to the co-developed digital supply chain, they will receive customised, 3D printed insoles suitable for ski boots and other sporting footwear. Materialise say the pilot phase has been a resounding success with professional athletes already endorsing both the product and supply process.
The partners are now exploring the potential for a similar set-up which will enable skiers to fully customise their ski boot liner, and even the entire boot, for maximum comfort and performance. Testing for the liner and full boot options is already underway, with professional athletes from a national ski team participating. They are schedule for release via leading sportswear retailers by December 2017, and Tailored Fits are excited for skiers to benefit from truly customised footwear.
Materialise
Materialise Ski boot insole
Complete: A customised, 3D printed insole suitable for a ski boot and other sporting footwear.
“The way an individual’s foot sits in a ski boot – the forces it exerts and the support it receives – makes a huge difference to comfort and performance, yet the issue is one our industry has failed to address,” said Reto Rindlisbacher, CEO of Tailored Fits. “We saw that 3D printing had massive potential in this respect, but this isn’t our area of expertise. Ski boots and sports gear is. We know the market, we know skiers, we know the biomechanics involved in sports motion; we have access to one of the world’s best sports gear development labs in Italy.
“From our partnership with Materialise, we received access to the additive manufacturing expertise to develop the best 3D printed solution, and the answer to making mass customised production a reality.”
Tailored Fits’ partnership with Materialise was struck over a year ago. They have since worked side-by-side to co-develop the process, looking at which specific parts could benefit from 3D printing and how the design to delivery process could be automated.
Tailored Fits
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Tailored Fits ski boot insole, final prototype render.
“We quickly saw that customised insoles would be critical,” said Dr Alireza Parandinian, Corporate Innovations and Global Strategist for Wearables at Materialise. “We began looking at materials and developing structures that would provide rigid support for key zones of the foot and flexible protection in others in order to maximise both comfort and performance. But identifying the right material and the right interior structures was just part of the puzzle.
“The process of analysing anatomically detailed 3D scans, converting that individual body data into print-ready instruction and automating the ordering, production and delivery process meant working incredibly closely with the Tailored Fits team to develop the ‘tailored fit’ for them. [It] has been a real honour and a co-creation project in the truest sense of the term.”
Materialise will manage and aim to enhance the automation process, providing 100% of the production capacity required to support the supply chain.
