Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

RYZwear.com: Applying the Threadless Concept to Footwear

"At RYZ we’ve set out to create a people’s brand – a community of designers, sneakerheads and anyone that cares enough about art, fashion or sneakers to speak up. Together we’ll create sneakers that are designed and chosen, not by some big, faceless corporation, but by you.

Think of RYZ as a stage for designers to showcase their creativity and a forum for people to define what great sneaker design means. In other words, we just make comfortable sneakers – the rest is up to you."

This is how Rob Langstaff announced his new business just one month ago, ryzwear.com The hope of RYZ is to become the Threadless of footwear, connecting people who design custom sneakers with those that vote on the designs and purchase. I am wondering since long what could be good fields where the extremely profitable Threadless idea can be applied to, and footwear could be one option.

Rob Langstaff is not an outsider of the sneaker world. The former Adidas America Inc. president has turned the business model of its former employer upside down, Instead of assigning design jobs to inhouse designers, he is relying on online clusters of consumers to design products and figure out which ones to sell. "In Ryz's case, it's MySpace meets "American Idol," with footwear as the unit of expression", as an online report called the business model.

"The corporate design team is limited by its walls," Langstaff is quoted in the news report, "The corporation shouldn't be dictating what the consumer wears. The consumers should."

This is how RYZ works:

• Each month, Ryz will post a different standardized shoe silhouette on its Web site (a high-top shoe and a low-top shoe were the first two). Users can download the template and, using Adobe Photoshop, illustrate or add images across the shoe.
  
  
• Site visitors can rate and comment on submissions. After a month, a winner will be declared and Ryz will order a run of the winning design -- 100 pairs to start and 1,000 pairs by next year -- from a contract manufacturer in China.
  
  
• The winning designer will get $1000 for the start, plus royalties of $1/piece on ongoing sales, and get their profiles attached to each pair and a listing in Ryzwear.com's Hall of Fame.
  
  
• Two weeks after the contest ends, Ryz will sell the winning shoes on the Web and, for now, in Xebio Co., a leading Japanese sporting-goods retailer that owns a stake in Ryz. The retail price: $75 to $90 a pair.

By 2012, Langstaff hopes to allow users to design the entire shoe, from the shape of the sole to the shape of the eyestay. He also hopes to get into athletic wear. He expects to rely on customers to do most of his marketing.

Rob Langstaff is putting $4 million into his shoe startup, saying there is too great a disconnect between businesses and consumers. He expects to do $40 million in revenue by 2012 (which would be about half the time of Threadless' way to scale, but could work given his larger experience in the market and the higher price tags).

Interestingly, among some of the people helping Langstaff to set to the business is Mikal Peveto, a former footwear executive who started design-your-own shoe site Customatix in 2000. In case you have followed mass customization since its beginning, you should know Customatix. The company got much attention and had one of the best online configurators of its time. But it also did offer too much of a good thing, giving users really zillions of choices at a time when consumers were not really educated in mass customization configurators.

But Peveto believes Ryzwear can succeed where Customatix failed because consumers today are more comfortable interacting and purchasing online from less-established companies.  "Our timing wasn't great. We couldn't get people to buy because they didn't trust the brand," Peveto said. "Now is a completely different time than in 2000 because there are so many different brands that are valid."

So I am curious to see whether Mikal Peveto and Rob Langstaff's predictions come true. They took some serious modifications of adopting the Threadless models for their industry. But Threadless' customers are as much purchasing the membership in a club, a community, by purchasing t-shirts frequently at $15 a pop. I am not quite sure that this will work with $90 sneakers.

To develop however a great (and profitable) underground line of sneakers with a great story, their approach may work will. They may want to take a bit more from the Muji, the Japanese's retailer, and its approach to the model. Muji is not just letting customers vote on new designs, but also asks them to make a small cash payment on the item they really want to have in stores. Thus, they can much better predict what people will purchase later. Such an approach also could benefit RYZ as it would connect the voting much closer with the purchasing of the line.

Context information:

A good article in Oregonlive told me first about RYZ

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle on crowdsourcing and user idea competitions is featuring RYZ, Threadless, and a number of other companies.

My previous reports about the CEC User Co-Design Competitionand Open Source Footwear.

The CEC Co-Design Contest: Open Innovation in the Footwear Industry

A year ago, I reported about the CEC User Co-Design Contest. Now, the results are in and the experiment is over. In the following guest article, Angelika Bullinger and Erik Hansen report about the contest. They are working at TUM Business School and were the project leaders of this contest. Here is their report:

During the last three to four years, we have seen a dramatic surge in interest in the principle of “open innovation”. “Open innovation” means the involvement of customers and other partners in the innovation process. By their creative input, many companies are significantly increasing their ability to source powerful products.

But how to meet with the creative minds outside your company?

For European shoe manufactures, an answer to this question is provided by the “CEC Co-Design Community (CE3C)”, a web-based platform that enables the integration of customers in the innovation process. The platform provides combinable modules for the interaction of the company with its customers and partners. For example, in the “mindstyle module”, customers get an analysis of their preferred style by intuitively selecting pictures out of number of photographs. The manufacturer gets information which trends are currently “hot”.

In another module, “product configuration” those shoes in the collection which can be customized are shown. By the data on individualized shoes, manufacturers are informed about customers’ preferences. Especially in combination, the modules of CE3C provide shoe manufacturers with rich information on their current consumers’ preferences. 

But preferences of current customers are not enough to your company? You want really innovative designs and get to know their creators? In this case, the “idea contest” is your solution. An idea contest is a forum in which passionate contributors from all over the world can exercise their creativity on account of a topic defined by the organisator. Prizes – and the recognition by the company – generate interest and drive participation. Typically, one company organizes an idea contest and submitted ideas are judged by a panel of employees.

The idea contest module of CE3C has already been very successfully tested - the “CEC Shoe Design Contest” was run between October and December 2007 on the platform. To involve customers more closely, a voting functionality allowed users to express their opinion on the submitted shoe designs. User votings were integrated the final decision-making on the winning designs.

The results of the CEC Shoe Design Contest have been very satisfying to the involved shoe manufacturers: In total, 63 highly innovative designs have been submitted. The active community of interested users (and submitters) has about 400 members who stem from nearly 50 countries around the globe. Both the unusual size of the community and the number of high-quality submissions indicate the power of the idea contest module of CE3C. The winning designs are currently manufactured and companies are getting in touch with the creative minds behind the designs.

You also want an idea contest for your company? You would like to meet with the still unknown designers? The CEC CoDesign Community (CE3C) stands ready for adaptation to your company’s particularities – and the established community only waits for the next idea contest on account of a thrilling topic. Let’s thus integrate and innovate!

For more information, contact Angelika Bullinger or Erik Hansen.

Here are some more results of the first contest in form of pictures:

Create the Shoe of you Dreams - Participate in the CEC Shoe Design Contest

Open Innovation and crowdsourcing finally is arriving in the footwear industry

Crowdsourced logos were yesterday, now it is all about shoes. The CEC project is a large European research project dedicated to nothing smaller than reinventing the footwear industry. My old research group at TUM is a major partner in the project, and as part of the work, they are now running the first European Consumer Shoe Design Contest where everyone can become a shoe designer.

Your task is to design a shoe model along a theme called “Original Origin”. This category of aesthetic trends expresses cultural values, regional roots and techniques and at the same time uses authentic materials and innovative shapes. The contest asks everyone to play with the theme and interpret it in the most creative, but still feasible way.

More details on the contest can be found in the CEC Contest briefing which also has the exact rules of the design contest.

Submissions are evaluated by a top-class jury consisting of international shoe and design experts from companies like Hugo Boss, CallagHan, Liitto, Future Concept Lab, and Frau. The jury's criteria for the assessment will be design, innovativeness, feasibility, task alignment, and an overall score for excellence. In addition, also the public can vote on their favorite design and nominate a public winner.

Awards are a bit technical but provide a nice opportunity for everyone interested in footwear:

The first price is a site visit with Hugo Boss in Morrovalle/Italy to get a prototype of your design as well as to gain insight into prototyping process.

The second price is a real working prototype of your design, manufactured according to your design and mailed to you

The third price is a free participation at the “Future Vision Workshops” dedicated to the aesthetic trends in Milan (also, winners of the first and second price are invited to participate).

How to participate:

Register on cec-designcontest.net and enter the “Design Studio” to upload your design. All what you have to do is to provide a sketch or rendering of your design (and a short description). All further information can be found in the design briefing.

Submissions are accepted until December 31st, 2007. Winners will be announced on February 29th, 2008.

Now, start designing!

A personal comment at the end: The footwear industry is an extremely conservative industry far behind many other industries with regard to open innovation and customer driven value creation. So it is a real revolution that they now start such a competition. I am curious to see how this contest may change their attitude and expectations – and if the wining design ever will be produced. However, the rather long contest rules and the not too fancy prices already show how difficult it is to get their commitment. But it is a great start – and hopefully more initiatives like this will follow!)

Context information:

- The contest web site: http://www.cec-designcontest.net
- Earlier post on the CEC-made Shoe Research Project
- Similar ongoing competition (open source footwear)

Puma BBQ for Millionaires: Puma cooperates with Italian luxury brand Schedoni to offer special collection of customized shoes

Earlier this week, I was in London for a workshop. As I had some time to spare, I browsed through Harrods which was just opposite my hotel. In te store, I found at least ten different customization offerings, including custom gold clubs and a “mi adidas” sales unit. But in the men’s shoe department (not in the Sports department!), I discovered a new Puma mass customization offering which was already launched in April of this year, but apparently is so exclusive that I did not discover it before.

To upscale its BBQ offerings, Puma cooperated with Italian luggage maker Schedoni, one of the top Italian luxury brands. The company has a special line of luggage for your new Ferrari, or offers bullet-proof briefcases used by the Italian secret service, and, since a few years, also hand crafted shoes (shoe manufacturing was the original core of the company).

To supplement your Ferrari (or Volkswagen) experience, Schedoni is now teaming up with Puma to offer a line of driving shoes that can be customized with regard to color. In London, I now saw this system in operation. Fitting to the craft nature of the product, the configurator is a low-tech high-touch system. In London, I could play around with the shoe building "Puzzle Kit" which allows you to choose from a wide variety of leather colors for both the outer leather, and a contrasting leather color that shoes through the familiar PUMA logo in the side of the shoe.

The Motortrend blog knows that “no more than 500 of each combination will be made, and each numbered and personalized.” But for 350 British pounds a pair (almost 700 USD), I personally found this a bit to expensive for a pair of high-end sneakers.

Like with the Puma BBQ system, the Puma-Schedoni configurator will rotate in 50 Puma stores worldwide and will be introduced in selected high-end department stores. The production process will take about 4-6 weeks, and will be performed in the Modena factory of Schedoni. Shoes will be shipped to the customers’ home afterwards.

While the press and blog reports that I found about this system all claimed this great combination, the actual display at Harrods was a bit disappointing. Indeed, they had this great leather traveling trunks shown in the picture left (all pictures from PUMA via Pumatalk.com) but sample shoes (in the boxes left and right) and leather patches were unorganized and looked used – and this even in the high-end atmosphere of the Harrods footwear department. This is a typical other example of using mass customization as a brand building exercise. Such a system does not really demand much effort in introduction, but has large press appeal and underlines the fashion appeal of Puma.

What the benefit for Schedoni is, I am not sure. They could have made this as a profitable stand-alone business with much higher margins, I believe, and perhaps a better positioning in the market.

Context:

More pictures and reports in Motortrend and Pumatalk
And my previous posts on customized sneakers.

Nike is Trying Threadless' Crowdsourcing Model

More Co-Creation at Nike

Coolhunting has an interesting small report on an upcoming NikeID project: They are offering their top-end (fashion) shoe, Nike Air Force 1, in a special co-design version. Starting 6 March 2007, users can design a custom Nike Air Force 1 using the NikeID configurator (how it works in detail). Designs are exhibited on the web, other users vote on the winning designs, and the winning design will then be specially made only for the winner, complete with bling sneaker jewelry.

For this project, Nike is collaborating with Sneakerplay, a social networking site of sneaker enthusiasts (only Sneakerplay members can particpate). While this sounds a bit like Threadless' collective customer commitment (crowdsourcing) model, it is different:

Nike takes the community, co-creation, and community evaluation idea, adds an easy-to-use toolkit to enable easier co-design (at Threadless, you have to know Photoshop), but then produces the winning design in a custom manufacturing step just for the winner.

[UPDATE: Just after I wrote this post, Bill commented on this post, saying that this is a good old design contest and not a new crowdsourcing model. And I agree! ]

Why not for everyone? Don't ask me ... it seems to be more like a clever PR pilot then a new business model. But at least it is a start and great idea to live their new "The consumer decides" philosophy with a different twist.

The Consumer Decides: Nike Focuses Competitive Strategy on Customization and Creating Personal Consumer Experiences -- Data about the Nike Plus Personalization System

During its recent Investor Days, the Nike top management board announced a strong shift of its strategy from being a sportswear brand to becoming the enabler of customized, personal experiences. “Investor Days” are an extensive briefing for analysts; taking place only about every two years (the last was in June 2005). During its recent briefing at the company’s headquarters in Portland on Feb 6, 2007, the company placed a strong focus on its new global theme “The Consumer Decides” and revealed some interesting facts about its customization ambitions and ways to sustainable consumer experience.

During the meeting, also a number of interesting performance data of the Nike Plus system were provided, the Apple-Nike cooperation that allows runners to customize their running experience in a simple but very clever way. It is a strong contrast to the exploding variety Nike is facing today, offering more than 13,000 product different styles in every single quarter.

First, Nike CEO Mark Parker explained the theme “The Consumer Decides”:

“The Consumer Decides is one of Nike's 11 maxims that really define who we are and how we compete as a company. Today, consumers have never held as much power as they do today. They have more choices and more access to those choices. They connect and collaborate with each other over the world. … Clearly, the power has shifted to consumers. For every Nike employee, there's ten million consumers out there deciding whether or not the products and brands we offer really matter. … The ability we have to connect with consumers is the single most important competitive advantage in business today, and nobody does that better than Nike. There is no substitute for connecting with consumers, but it's really just the beginning.”

Nike’s Brand President, Charlie Denson, focused in his speech on the changing consumer and the particular demand for customization:

“[Consumers] want to be part of a community, whether it's a digital community or a virtual community, or whether it's a physical community. They want to feel like they're a part of something. They want to be engaged. …

And another thing that is very, very important to us as we look to the future is the value that the consumer is placing on customization. It's a very, very important part of the way that they interact with anybody or with brands today. We used to talk about the consumer in what we thought was specific, but in today in retrospect, feels like generalities, the fact that we used to put a 18 and a 22-year old in a same set of psychographic, demographic targets. Today, I can very comfortably say that the 18 and the 22-year olds are working on different -- they're living on different planets or at different places. As Mark said, these consumers have more choices than they've ever had.

What our challenge is to keep it simple, make those choices as simple as we can, and make them personal. We've spent the last, or in our case, 20 or 30 years trying to bundle things, adding value to a purchase or a relationship. And now, it's almost in reverse, because you have to unbundle everything if it's going to become customizable.”

During the event, the Nike Plus system was described as a perfect example of this strategy. Trevor Edwards, VP Global Brand & Category Management, describes the system and gives some numbers on its acceptance:

Nike Plus "combines the physical world with the digital world. We put a sensor in the shoe that speaks to the iPod, and you can hear how far you went, how long you went and how many calories you've burned, pretty simple thoughts. And then, when you dock it, you have a world of information at your fingertips. You get to see all that you've done, all your runs stored in a very simple, intuitive web experience where you can set goals for yourself. You can see how you've progressed. In fact, this week, I think we've put up -- you can actually map your run anywhere you go. In addition, you can join in the Nike Plus community where you can challenge your friends or other community members to run physically, but compete virtually. And since our launch, we have close to 200,000 members.

What do the numbers tell us today? First important fact, 35% of the members that we surveyed are actually new to using Nike footwear. So, we've brought more consumers into our franchise. The second part is, more than half of them are actually using the survey to service four times a week. And this is probably the most important statistic, 93% said they would recommend it to a friend, 93%. This is an incredibly sticky proposition, a great way to build loyalty for our brand and obviously build the business.”

Charlie Denson describes the growth plans Nike has with the system:

“That is a dedicated consumer experience. It is changing the game, and it's creating that competitive advantage for us. We would like to see 15% of all runners using Nike Plus, 15%. Now, that's not a very big number, except for there's 100 million people who call themselves runners worldwide. ….”

So in summary, this sounds like a big success and stresses that this really has been a clever idea to provide customization in this industry in a rather simple way, but in one that matters for consumers. And with the target of 15 million users, this would be one of the largest mass customization programs ever.

In another section of the event, Don Blair, Nike’s CFO, provided some interesting figures on the scope of variety that Nike is facing today. I often mention in my presentations the explosion of SKUs and variants that global brands today think to have to offer to create appealing products in heterogeneous markets. Nike seems to have recognized that just increasing the number of variants is not the ultimate way to appeal to consumers:

“SKU productivity. One of the great strengths of our company is our ability to create compelling innovative products that excite consumers. But there can be too much of a good thing. Each quarter we sell about 13,000 different styles of footwear and apparel and because of our high rate of seasonal turnover, we sell tens of thousands of different styles every year. And there are many additional styles that make it part way through the process, but don't end up in the final line that goes to market.

Each one of these tens of thousands of styles drives costs; costs for design, development, sampling, transportation, storage and sales. For footwear 95% of our revenue comes from about 35% of our styles and for apparel the figure is about 40%. …”

Costs of samples to provide this variety were given with more than $100 million. Given these numbers, an adaptable product like Nike Plus or a truly mass customized product, produced on-demand, sounds very appealing and much more efficient.

For the full transcript of the investors meeting, go to nike.com.

Offline Customization -- Morgan Miller Fashion Shoe Workshop in South Beach, Florida

Madeforone today discovered the link to an interesting story in the Miami Herald about another off line experience for footwear customization.

So to continue the stream of posting around this theme, here some extracts from the Miami Herald article. For me, the entire concept sounds very much like the Via Della Spiga Concept store of watch maker Swatch where consumers also can co-create (craft) their own custom watches in a store (see old posting on Swatch's customization store). I believe that there is still much growth potential in this business model.

So this is what you can do – since Nov. 1, 2006 -- in Miami at Morgan Miller (1634 Euclid Ave., Miami Beach, 305-672-6658), a customization boutique owned by Morgan Miller, 24, a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a bachelor's degree in communications:

“Ever find a pair of strappies you loved, except the straps were all wrong Now you can design your own—from the heel up—at Morgan Miller, a unique design-and-go shopping experience that takes only 30 minutes. At 24, designer Morgan Miller, owner of the new South Beach boutique, has put an innovative, rock star spin on the shoe-glutton movement.

''We provide the ingredients for women to be their own designers so they are able to put their own stamp on things,'' said Miller, a New Jersey native. Clients choose from a mélange of soles, straps and buckles to create a shoe exactly to their liking, at prices ranging from $150 to $500.

There's a buffet of kitten heels, cork and wooden wedges of various altitudes and attitudes. There are high heels, low heels and chunky heels in black or white lacquer. Straps can be had from more than 100 options, including lizard, python, ostrich, alligator, leopard-print hide and the leathers: patent, metallic and pearlized. Buckles can involve Swarovski crystals or faux bamboo Strap and buckle samples are attached with Velcro to a wall of black velvet so clients can handle all their options. And once the style combos are chosen, bubbly is served and the foot is measured.”

Another website, Daily Candy , describes the customization process:

Step 1: The base. Stiletto, kitten heel, cork platform — she’s got you covered, from beach to banquet.

Step 2: The strap. Go conservative with black or sex things up with turquoise python — there are plenty of fabrics and colors to choose from.

Step 3: The accessory. You’ve got more than 100 options: Bling out with crystals and jewels or keep it simple with a silver chain or nothing at all. Of course, you’re not expected to actually make the shoes. The in-house cobblers take care of that.

But in the end it is all about the experience, as the Miami Herald writes:

The boutique resembles a candy store for grown-ups. Big candy jars hold rhinestones and other embellishments. Crystal chandeliers illuminate the sparkling shop. The shoes, which can resemble those by Jimmy Choo, arrive a mere half-hour later—on Tiffany & Co. silver platters. ... A self-confessed shoe freak, Miller plans to expand her made-to-order shoe business to include handbags and belts, but with a longer turnaround of two-three weeks.

Context information: Previous postings on offline customization stores:
- Adidas Paris miAdidas flagship store
- Selve Footwear Customization Experience
- DNA Style Lab
- Korean iFashion project with virtual mirrors
- Personalization Stores collection- at CS Scout
- Via Della Spiga Concept store Posting in old newsletter

Adidas Finally Adds Experiment & Service to its Mi Adidas Product – New mi Adidas Innovation Center Opened in Paris

I recently wrote about the opportunities of bringing mass customization into stores and selling the experience as much as the custom product (see the DNA Style Lab posting). Now Adidas, a premier example of mass customization in my talks and lectures, has expanded its in-store presence with a huge new mi Adidas retail outlet in its new Paris flagship store.

The 1,750 square meter Paris adidas Sport Performance store occupies two floors on the Avenue de Champs Elysees and features a wide selection of adidas products. The core part of this store is a pimped mi-adidas sales system, called mi Innovation Center (mIC):

"The "mi Innovation Center" will change the way consumers shop and their expectations at retail. It is a true first and we are thrilled to premier the mIC in Paris offering customers a whole new dimension of interaction with adidas products," Karen Feldpausch-Sturm, Senior Vice President of Global Retail for Adidas, is quoted in a press announcement. Adidas, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, plans to roll out the new high-tech concept stores in major cities worldwide, including one in China in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Features of the new customization unit in the mIC include:

# A large glossy, black cube is the focal point of the center. Here, customers can customize their own "mi adidas", using now a larger flat-screen configurator to alter the details of the shoes by simply pointing a finger to the screen. Laser and infra-red technology then translate the gestures into commands. Foot scanning and pressure scanning is done as in the mi adidas stores before.

# New is also a virtual mirror where users can see their personalized shoe on their own foot without even removing ones shoes!

# But customization is not only high-tech: Customers are accompanied by specially trained "adidas experts" who, like a personal trainer, advise on nutrition, exercise and products. With a portable hand-held PC, the sales associates record a consumer's personal data and desires, creating a user profile that he/she can view at their convenience via the internet.

# In addition to the cube, the center also provides some insight into new approaches of selling standard products: At a table, a sliding carriage can be moved over a desired shoe and then specific product information will appear on the screen via Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Update: On YouTube is now a Video showing exactly the new mi adidas customization process (thanks to Rebang for the link).

I don't had the opportunity to visit this store in person, but a sneaker enthusiast posted a nice review on the BKRW blog (the reviewer seemed to have not heard before that Adidas is offering basically the same service since 2001, thus not in such a fancy retail outlet):

"Well, to be honest we were really impressed and can't wait to test it for real (don't worry we will be in the first row…) ! The concept is really simple, it's a kind of NIKE ID applied to performance shoes. It means that you can customize our own performance shoes, according to the way u need it. You can change the design, change the colors, add some words or some special tags, but most of all you can even materials of the shoes : sole, mid-sole, chassis, uppers, studs… The truth is that ADIDAS is pushing the whole performance concept with the even way of customizing your shoes, because even being in MI INNOVATION CENTER is a travel into the future: as we said you are running on a video carpet, each salesman has a touch screen tablet to change into real time your adjustments and preferences, while you are directing your mouse on the menu screen by the means of a laser system of pointing…"

Is all this just another marketing gimmick?, asks Business Week in a report about this store.

My answer is yes and no. Regarding customization of the product, it is just a pimped up version of the mi adidas retail units that are in place since years. But regarding the overall strategy of customization, it is a large step forward. For the first time, the company is not focusing on the custom product, but on the custom service and experience users get when purchasing the shoe. The custom nutrition program and fitness guides offer much more value as yet-an-other color-option at NikeID. So while Nike had an easy win with the Ipod-Nike-combination offering individual tracking of your running behavior, I think Adidas has beaten its competition with this integration retail innovation by far – if they are able to scale up this system and deliver what they promise.

Business Week quotes Fiona Fairhurst, director of Zero Point Zero One, a sports consultancy in Nottinghamshire, England, on this:

"These days if you look around the gym, everyone is their own fitness expert. People know how to use heart-rate monitors and measure their own level of hydration …An individual will steer clear of a brand that doesn't fit properly, no matter how exclusive that brand is. If you know that Adidas fits you perfectly and comfortably then they have a customer for life."

Footwear Customization 3.0: The First Rapid Manufactured Shoe

Footwear customization brought to a really new level: Today, I had the opportunity to have the world's first working prototype of a totally new shoe concept in my hands: a 100% laser-sintered shoe. What looks like a normal shoe, is a real revolution and one of the largest achievements I have seen in the mass customization world.

The shoe, developed by Marc van der Zande from TNO Science and Industry (a Dutch research institute) and independent designer Sjors Bergmans of Sjors Bergmans Concept Design, comes out of the manufacturing machine as you see it in the pictures on the left – in one manufacturing process, no assembly required (only some finishing, polishing, etc.)! And no one cares any longer if each product is custom or just a replication of a standard design.

The TNO shoe concept, named 'Head over Heels', is the first application of rapid (digital) manufacturing technologies (more about RM) to an entire product in the footwear industry. Such a concept would allow the rapid customization of shoes to a radical extreme – without any of the constraints of conventional custom manufacturing mechanisms like the need for custom lasts, custom cutting of materials, and a new organization of the work process in manufacturing. With rapid manufacturing, a digital design (CAD) can be transformed directly into a tangible product.

In an earlier venture, UK-Based Prior2Lever introduced a soccer boot that contains a rapid manufactured component, the outsole. But the shoe developed by TNO goes much further. To come up with such a concept, the entire design of a shoe had to be redesigned. A flexible element in the sole allows for high flexibility, and integrated elements in the upper are providing flexible hold.

In the moment, this project is in the proof of concept state. According to a colleague who tested the shoes (in the first design just available in a 38 size), they are at least as comfortable as conventionally produced shoes. Future development will include a wider range of models (including a model for men) and an easily scalable design so that in the end a foot scan can automatically be transferred into a custom design. Also, manufacturing costs have to go down. Today, a pair of rapid manufactured shoes comes still with a heavy price tag of 600 Euros. But TNO project manager Marc van der Zande expects that production costs can be dropped to less than 100 Euro within a few years, given the present speed and scope of application of rapid manufacturing technologies in many industries. With this larger scale, materials and machine costs will become much cheaper.

For me, this shoe presentation today was a great glimpse into the future. Just think five years ahead: Then you may really get your feed scanned, and a moment later, your new shoes will be 3D-printed immediately in the store. With this, the long tail of footwear could be driven to an extreme! But most important, the 'Head over Heels' concept provides a strong further proof that digital manufacturing technologies like laser sintering are not just for prototyping any more, but are rapidly becoming a standard manufacturing technology.

More information on the 'Head over Heels' Laser Sintered Shoe:
- For more information on the footwear design, contact Marc van der Zande (marc.vanderzande AT tno.nl) or Sjors Bergmans (comengo AT gmail.com).
- The concept will also be presented on the TNO Symposium on Rapid Manufacturing, Evoluon Conference Center in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Tuesday, Oct 31, 2006.

Context information:
- Jochen Krisch recently had a good overview on companies offering rapid manufacturing capabilities for everyone in his blog.
- John Marshall writes about the older, but still great application of rapid manufacturing for the lamps of the Benelux company Materialise.
- And my own more recent posts on customization of footwear, Open Source Footwear and the interview with Sergio Dulio on latest developments in this area.

Mass Customization Case Study Collection -- New Issue of the Mass Customization Journal Published

A new issue (No. 4, Vol 1) of the International Journal of Mass Customization has just been published (see here for more general information). This issue is a special CASE STUDY issue containing eight cases from the International Mass Customization Case Collection, an initiative of more than 25 international researchers collaborating to build a broad basis for empirical research on mass customization. The idea of this project, coordinated by Klaus Moser at TUM, is to document current practices of mass customization businesses in a form that allows rich cross-case analysis and learning from previous experiences.

We are happy that we now can present the first eight cases of this collection in one issue, starting with three cases of mass customization of industrial goods:

* APC, a provider of data centre infrastructure from the US and Denmark,
* MarelliMotori, a manufacturer of electric motors from Italy,
* F.L.Smidth, a Denmark-based manufacturer of complex process plants for the construction industry.

Then, three case studies from the footwear industry provide the opportunity for cross-case analysis in one industry:

* Adidas, an international manufacturer of sports goods based in Germany,
* Left foot, a Finland-based worldwide operating provider of custom men’s shoes, and
* Design&MC Lab, a research lab and model plant for the mass customization of footwear based in the Italian shoemaking capital, Vigevano.

The two remaining cases focus on special objectives connected with the implementation of a mass customization strategy in business-to-consumer markets:

* Steppenwolf, one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of custom bicycles, and
* Turo Tailor, a Finnish manufacturer of apparel (men’s suits).

See here for authors and abstracts of all cases.

Full text access to the cases demands a subscription of the journal. But: Due to the cooperation with the publisher, we now can offer to all past participants of our conferences (MCPC, Deutsche MC Tagungen, IMCM, etc.) full online access to all issues for a very (really!) good price. Please contact me for more information and to get the special subscription form. Disclaimer: I am neither the publisher of this journal nor do I profit in any form from its sales or subscriptions.

Related posts on this topic:

- First issue of IJMassC published
- Special issue on Customer Centric Enterprises published

PS: We are extending this collection. If you want to contribute a mass customization case, please contact me as well (Important: Cases have to be contributed by independent scholars, not by members of the case company described!)

MC&OI Interview: Sergio Dulio on Advancements and Open Opportunities of Mass Customized Footwear

With this posting, I will start a new series of interviews with key persons from the mass customization and personalization community. I plan to publish a new interview each month or so. The idea is to provide you first-hand access to the experiences of some of the leading entrepreneurs in our field.

The interview series will start with an industry where the benefits of customization seem to be very obvious, but where the level of application is lacking behind the level of available technology: custom footwear. And when talking about custom footwear, no one is a better partner for dialog than Sergio Dulio. Sergio is know to me as one (if not the) world's foremost authoritis on mass customization of footwear (see his bio at the end of this posting):

Sergio, how did an aerospace engineer come down to earth to revolutionize the footwear business?

I think it has to do somehow with my “roots”. Being born in Vigevano, a town which lived of shoe making until the 1960s and that now lives of shoe technologies, it was inevitable that sooner or later I would get involved. I started almost 20 years ago with CAD systems for shoe design, then worked with machines. More and more I build experience with shoe design and manufacturing processes. Mass customization is my latest passion.

What are the three greatest achievements we have made so far with regard to mass customization of shoes?

I would say that the main achievements deal all with “consciousness”: First, consumers are becoming more conscious -- and demanding -- of how important it is for them to have the right shoes for their feet and to find producers that really care about them. 

Second, shoe producers are becoming more conscious of the added value that selling made-to-order customized shoes can generate for them. And eventually the consciousness, among consumers and producers, that technology, in particular information technologies, is available to make the mass customization paradigm happen.

Do you see any upcoming trends with regard to new players, technologies, markets, etc. of mass customization in footwear?

I actually see two parallel trends: Outsiders who are fascinated by the idea of modernizing what they perceive to be an old fashioned business like shoemaking and who are starting new ventures for MC shoes. I would call this a hexogen approach to shoe MC. In parallel, I see an endogen movement by traditional shoemakers who realize the potential of MC and are in increasing numbers considering projects of this kind. Form the technology standpoint, I see a progressive consolidation of all the major enablers that are needed to support this business.

What are the best (your favorite) examples of mass customization in the footwear industry?

I would give you three examples: the MiAdidas initiative that I would name “knowledge and German discipline” for the profoundly thought and structured approach how Adidas applies the MC concept to demanding shoes like the sport ones.

Then Selve that I would define “courage and determination” for having tackled the challenging sector of lady fashionable shoes and for not having given up despite the sometimes insurmountable  problems a young and small start up company may have.

And last but not least the American OTABO that I would name “going against the odds” for having decided to start a footwear manufacturing business in the USA when all the other shoemakers had fled away to the famous low labor cost countries

What are the main challenges still ahead? And what are the limits of mass customization of footwear, when does it make no sense?

I believe that the basic technical “building blocks” are all available and in their right place. Forerunners have taken advantage of that. What is still missing is a widespread acceptance of the concept both by the producers and also by consumers. Perhaps an “education campaign” aimed at consumers would help. Honestly, if the concept of MC applied to footwear is clearly defined and well understood, I see no real limits to it and very few circumstances in which it makes no sense.

Apparently, mass customization of footwear is not for everyone. What questions should managers ask themselves when considering mass customization?

I do not completely agree on the fact that MC in footwear is not for everyone. Potentially it could be, from the operational and technical standpoint, adopted by all shoe companies. It is only a question of determination in changing, at least in some parts, the traditional organization of the enterprise.

The questions managers should ask themselves are: Do we know and do we care about our consumers? Are we conscious that caring about them could give an added value to our business? If the answers to these questions are positive, than companies are fit for MC.

Why are so many established footwear companies reluctant to enter the mass customization business – even if they seem to loose more ground to Asian manufacturers each year?

I believe it has to do with “ignorance”, in the sense that they seem to ignore what the business model can bring and they are then afraid by the technical difficulties; I am convinced that the more they will know about what MC can bring and how it can contribute to differentiate their offer, the more they will start to seriously consider it.

What is your personal (recent) contribution to work on these challenges?

I would define it “spreading the Gospel”, in workshops and conferences, in contacts with companies, trying to help them understanding on one side the technical challenges not be underestimated and on the other the benefits that could derive from the adoption of MC.

I recently have been actively involved in many field tests with real shoes and real consumers, which convinced me even further that the efforts are worth it. Last but not least I am working, together with Professor Boer, with whom I shared my experience in coordinating the EUROShoE project, at book precisely on the subject of mass customization and footwear.

One question I am sometimes asking myself is why am I so attracted by mass customization and footwear?  I think it is the fact that it conjugates the fascination of tradition and well made crafts with the combination of latest technologies to obtain these products in a cost effective way.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

The greatest offering I don’t think it exists yet. It will be there when we will enter the customized shoe shops, go through the measurement and selection process with no need to testing samples, knowing that the shoes will come in time and will be good at the first go. And knowing that my shoes will certain be “made in…my country” and “made with love for the product”. Perhaps a bit utopistic, but certainly not unrealistic.

Brief bio of Sergio Dulio

Sergio Dulio, by training a master in aerospace engineering from the Polytechnic of Milan, joined IBM in 1984 as a member of their first technical support team to the 3D CAD/CAM application CATIA. During this time, he also got in initial contact with the footwear world introducing some of first families of shoe specific CAD / CAM applications. Later, he worked for ATOM, one of the leading companies in the field of shoe machinery, as an expert of leather cutting technology.

In the past decade, he coordinated a number of innovative projects for SINTESI, a footwear research consortium with the Italian National Research Council ITIA–CNR. In 2001 he was appointed by ITIA as the technical coordinator of the EUROShoE project, one of the largest EU funded projects in the footwear field, with 33 partners and a total budget of 17 million €, aimed at the development of technologies for the design and manufacturing of customized shoes. In 2003 he gets a contract with CNR – ITIA to organize, install and activate a Design and Mass Customization Laboratory in Vigevano (the capital of Italian shoe manufacturing), where a pilot factory for the production of customized shoes has been put in operation.

He currently works as a technical consultant for ASSOMAC (Association of shoe machinery producers) and ANCI (Italian association of footwear manufacturers) and helps private entrepreneurs to master the challenges of mass customization in footwear.

Contact him at dulio@tin.it or Tel. +39 0381 905827, Cell +39 335 6664251

Previous postings on mass customization of footwear:

• Open Source Footwear -- bringing customer co-design to a traditional industry
• Shoe Individualizer Selve Wins Retail Week's Product Innovation of the Year Award 2006
• Prior 2 Lever: Footwear Customization With Rapid Manufacturing
• Overview of recent customization offerings in footwear and apparel

Open Source Footwear -- bringing customer co-design to a traditional industry

How the EU-funded CEC project wants to foster customer co-design in the footwear industry -- and why star designer John Fluevog is already doing it.

When people talk about open innovation, in most case it is related to high tech or science products as in the case of Innocentive, or software as with open source software. Then you have hip youth products like T-shirts, as in the case of Threadless' user innovation model [Threadless seems to be omni-present in the press and blog world today (I introduced Threadless in in this blog in August 2005; see for some updates on Threadless Business 2.0, Exciting Commerce, Crowdsouring, Innovation Lab DK, and of course at Threadless themselves).

But can the open source / user innovation idea also work with rather conventional products like, say, shoes? No high-tech sports shoes (see here for a recent paper on user innovation at Adidas, working paper version here), but good ol' dress shoes?

This is one of the issues Angelika Bullinger wants to find out as part of the "CEC-made shoes" project, a large integrated project funded by the European Community (PDF with project info) to modernize the European footwear sector. Angelika, who is a colleague at our TUM Research Group on Customer-Driven Value Creation (my permanent academic home besides my present residency at MIT), explores with researchers from Fraunhofer IAO and other institutions how footwear companies can become more competitive by fostering user innovation in this industry.

One way to do so is to install internet platforms (innovation toolkits) where users can evaluate new designs, give feedback or even create totally new designs. Given that shoes are one of the most common products we use, and also a very emotional one, I believe that there is a lot of potential to do so (mass customization, another concept that is also evaluated in the CEC project, is already getting more common in the footwear industry industry).

And some innovative shoe companies are already doing it: William C. Taylor reports in the New York Times today how Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog, one of the stars of his profession (loyal customers call themselves ''Fluevogers"), has been soliciting ideas from its customers -- encouraging brand enthusiasts to submit their own sketches for leather boots, high-heeled dress shoes, even sneakers with flair. He posts the submissions on his company's Web site, invites visitors to vote for their favorites and manufactures and sells the most promising designs.

''Customers want to express themselves, to be involved with the brand,'' Mr. Fluevog is quoted in the article. ''For so long, people would hand me a drawing of their personal design for a shoe or ask if I had considered an idea they liked. This program is a natural outgrowth of that desire for connection.''

As the NYT reports, until today the company has chosen nearly 300 finalists from the flow of sketches into its headquarters -- and introduced ten shoes based on customer designs, including the Urban Angel Traffic, a walking shoe (retail price, $179) designed by a customer in Moscow, and the Fellowship Hi Merrilee, a vintage-style pump ($189) designed by a customer in Provo, Utah.

Introducing customers in footwear design may have its limits: ''Some of the ideas from customers are striking, but impossible to make,'' Mr. Fluevog sayz in the article. What tends to work best, he explained, are intriguing twists on design themes that he and his colleagues are already exploring. ''But even submissions we can't make add to the stimulation,'' he added. ''Our customers get more involved, and we get insights into who they are and what they're doing. It's better for both of us.''

This is exactly where we want to extend the user innovation process with the research we do for the CEC project. Instead of asking consumers for sketches with a very wide solution space, sometimes representing impossible designs, the idea of an internet based toolkit for user innovation is that customers are guided and are designing within the capabilities of a specific company.

Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has described this method for more high tech goods like semiconductors, food flavors, or plastics, before:

"In a time of ever more talented technology enthusiasts, hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers, all connected by Internet-enabled communication," he is quoted in the same NYT article, "the most intensely engaged users of a product often find new ways to enhance it long before its manufacturer does. Thus, companies that aspire to stand out in fast-moving markets would be wise to invite their smartest users into the product design process."

''It's getting cheaper and cheaper for users to innovate on their own,'' Professor von Hippel said. ''This is not traditional market research -- asking customers what they want. This is identifying what your most advanced users are already doing and understanding what their innovations mean for the future of your business.''

The fact that a successful designer like John Fluevog is thinking this way now as well is very promising – as it are often the internal designers or engineers of a manufacturer who oppose the idea that users and customers can be a source for innovation as well.

It will take for the very conservative European footwear industry some more years to think in such a way – judged by my experience from working with this industry (see my earlier comments on the slow adoption of mass customization there). Hopefully their customers, support by some clever Asian manufacturers, have not pushed them out of business until them. But we hope to contribute a bit with the CEC project that this will not happen.

I will keep you posted on the outcomes and progress in this research project. If you are from the footwear industry and want to explore user innovation (or are already doing so), let us know! We are permanently looking for further exploration partners from this industry.

Mass Customization As a Strategy to Prevent Plagiarism and Copy Cats in Fashion: Freddy&Ma Designer Handbags

This is an interesting new perspective on strategies for mass customization: If you are in a fashion business where your products are copied by copy cats rapidly, mass customization can help as it is impossible to copy this huge variety of styles. This is the motivation of Freddy&Ma, a designer of handbags and accessories, who announced yesterday the opening of an online boutique for designing custom handbags. The website enables shoppers to direct the design process by combining different prints, leathers and hardware options to create original products.

From the press release:

"Most designer handbags are copied within weeks of release. Because Freddy&Ma ensures originality through millions of possible combinations, an F&M customer is unlikely to ever see another person carrying her unique design. (...) President Anthony Pigliacampo notes "Unique is the new black. People want bags that no one else has and that are a reflection of their own style. Our goal is to give them the tools they need to express themselves and to create bags that are truly distinct."

While I challenge this statement a bit (high end designer handbooks are such a hot item exactly as everyone who can afford to get will get the same design, and the satisfaction from these products comes from peer recognition), there is some truth behind: If the web site allows to design your own bag within a restricted design space so that there is still a distinguish brand image, this is a good strategy.

Freddy&Ma's bags are produced just outside of NYC and shipped to the customer within three to four weeks. The initial collection offers six distinct bag silhouettes that serve as starting points in the customization process. The collection ranges from small purses to large, laptop-sized, totes with prices between $150 and $350 dollars.

Their configuration toolkit is well done, no special features, but a good example for a user friendly layout. But compare it with the 121TIME.com website I wrote about in the previous post, and you will see while I regard 121TIME as the leader in BtoC customization (even if their site is really slow sometimes).

Update: Use the discount code "masscustom" to get a 20% discount at check out when you design their bags (Disclaimer: I have no business relationship or affiliate marketing agreement with this company.)

Shoe Individualizer Selve Wins Retail Week's Product Innovation of the Year Award 2006

But European Footwear Manufacturers Seem Not to Care

"Mass Customization rules", the blog Exciting eCommerce recently commented on this year's nominations for the Webby Awards 2006, the leading international award honoring excellence in web design, usability and functionality, established in 1996. Three (of five) 2006 award nomination in the important retail category go to mass customization solutions: Sport brands O´Neill and Reebok for their online sneaker configurators and to Sherwin-Williams, a really well done configurator for home paints [Update: this site finally won teh award in this category!].

But also in the offline world, mass customization is a winning strategy. Selve, the Munich and London based provider of custom women's footwear, just won the prestigious U.K. "Product Innovation of the Year" Award by Retail Week. This is a further recognition of the excellence and pioneering work Claudia Kieserling and her U.K. partner Karen Macintyre are doing in this industry.

Selve has been the first company offering fully customized shoes for women in an affordable price range (180-250 Euro). Launched in Germany in 2001 and in the U.K. in 2004, Selve shoes are truly made-to-order in an Italian factory. Women can select colors, style options, heel heights, and more, and of course each shoe is perfectly fitted to the exact measurements of each foot. Recently, Selve also introduced a line of men's shoes in its Munich store.

It is surprising to see that not more footwear manufacturers are moving on this model. While there are several good footwear brands offering custom men's shoes, Selve is still the only company helping women to find the perfect fit. Market research conducted by the European Community, however, has shown that the market potential for women's custom footwear would be much larger. And with companies like Corpus-e, there are today also very affordable scanning solutions available to support 3D measurement (Corpus's scanners are much beyond the traditional 20,000 USD price tag of a conventional foot scanner). In addition, projects like the Euroshoe or CEC-made Shoe have provided all the necessary research and technology to produce custom footwear with mass production efficiency.

Still, the industry is not really reacting on the trend (contrarily to the sports good industry, where today EVERY large brand is offering mass customization). In the last year, more small Italian and Spanish footwear manufacturer went out of business than ever before. They can't compete with Asian manufacturers on standard shoes. But what I do not understand is that almost none of them are becoming entrepreneurs and provide mass customization capacity.

Selve and the few other existing brands are desperately looking for more reliable manufacturing capacity, their customers are waiting for days (in the London store) just to get an appointment to purchase shoes (there is no talk about price competition)! The market is there, but manufacturing seems not to care about. Due to lack of industry support, also the EuroShoe Factory is not really winning pace.

Hopefully the Retail Week Award and other recognitions will slowly change the conservative mindset of the remaining European manufacturers – before they are all dead and replaced by Asian competitors (which, by the way, are very happy to manufacturer custom products).

Full disclosure: I am on the board of directors of Corpus-e, and conducted joint contract research with Selve before.

Prior 2 Lever: Footwear Customization With Rapid Manufacturing

Volker Junior has been one of the most activ