A new chapter in Additive Tech for Footwear

Excited to see the launch of the Climacool 24 and reaction!! Great project to have closely observed from a talented and passionate footwear creation team in Portland, China, Vietnam and Germany.

Sharing my personal impressions and lessons from this chapter of additive footwear. I believe these are core design principles related to product innovation, strategy and creation process. These are transferable to many emerging creation methods and manufacturing technologies, not only computational design and 3D printing. I'd love to hear thoughts and welcome to DM.

Matching consumer value to tech capabilities. There is a match between a common athlete need - keeping feet cool - with a technology strength – the 3D printed lattice allows air and moisture flow. A big bonus is the link to the long-standing adidas benefit pillar of the Climacool brand platform. Ensuring a match between tech capabilities and human need seems a no brainer but there are so many examples where brands don’t vet the tech-consumer match and fail down the line.

Business models and market intro bespoke to technology. Footwear cushioning P&L and margin targets are heavily built around foam mould costs and amortization. With a disruptive process like 3D printing, the levers of profitability are different. Forcing the pricing structure, numbers of SKUs and product lifecycle into a foam business model results in compromises and makes it difficult to hit a good match in consumer need to tech capability. This concept isn’t the final solution, but the needle has been shifted and the market has a reason to believe – offering a new lease of life to 3D printing as a viable offering.

Investment in creation competency early allows brands to capitalize on new tech breakthroughs. The team working on this has many years of combined experience in computational design, engineering and product development, having blazed the trail in scaling 3D printing in footwear. An unexpected material breakthrough was one unlock to this product. The team could act on this quickly, evolve creation approaches and jump on this opportunity with an elegant solution. Without being “in the game”, this would have been much harder to achieve. If brands want to be positioned as leaders, they need to take strategic investments in technologies and new creation competencies before the technology reaches full maturity and become ubiquitous across the industry.