Integrating modern virtual engineering tools in footwear design and development

Abstract

Footwear prototyping is constrained by significant volume of “sampling”, time to market pressures, cost implications and the failure of the industry to attract and develop high quality professionals mastering modern computer-aided product development. Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) and material selection are becoming increasingly important transforming factors of this process raising the question of how to best integrate them into the design function considering not only infrastructure issues but also human resources and financing. Their role in footwear development is presented in this paper, based on the view of design as a multistage process subject to Concurrent Engineering. Proposed interventions to the design process for exploiting modern CAE and material selection tools are discussed, taking into account the business Value Chain Model and modern Cloud Service approaches. Innovative approaches to harness the processing power of modern CAE tools are identified and related to business practices, considering, also, the role of product development professionals and financing constraints. In particular, the application of the cloud service model of managing Software as a Service is discussed along with relevant opportunities and limitations. The paper concludes with an overall assessment of the impact that this model may have on the footwear industry.