#Adidas 4d futurecraft y3 full#

It allowed the teams to closely collaborate throughout the shoe iteration process to ensure that the ultimate design was the best combination of design, material, and print process.

#Adidas 4d futurecraft y3 full#

In the incubator factory, Carbon developed a full print and post processing solution and validated it even before the equipment landed at adidas’s factory. Motivated to enable the best production solution possible for adidas, Carbon established an incubator factory at its headquarters to develop and validate a print method and materials for Futurecraft 4D. Gone are the days when it was necessary to prototype a product using a technology that does not allow for scale-up. In other words, Carbon’s technology makes prototyping obsolete. These were not just prototypes for assessing a design’s visual appeal: We could actually test midsole performance in the design stage. The Carbon-adidas collaboration made ten times as many iterations possible! Further, each iteration was produced with the same process and material as the ultimate product. This process is so slow that many product development programs can only afford three to five redesign cycles before finalizing the design, constraining the product team’s innovation. Traditionally, product development has followed four steps: design, prototyping, tooling, and production. By charting a new course for our industry, we can unleash our creativity - transforming not just what we make, but how we make it.”Įric Liedtke adidas Group Executive Board Member Responsible For Global BrandsĬarbon’s rapid product development process enabled adidas to iterate over 50 different lattices for the midsole before landing on the current design. One driven by athlete data and agile manufacturing processes. “With Digital Light Synthesis, we venture beyond limitations of the past, unlocking a new era in design and manufacturing. A trailblazing partnership had been forged. To overcome this constraint and 3D print final midsoles, adidas turned to the Carbon DLS process, its factory-ready 3D printing method, and its high-performance materials to design and directly produce the next generation of athletic footwear. As a result, while adidas could 3D print prototypes of their midsoles, the final midsole design was still constrained by the ultimate production process, i.e. For adidas, the 3D printing industry lacked the production-grade elastomers needed for a demanding athletic footwear application. Prints are often painfully slow, require wasteful part supports that are ultimately thrown in the trash, and use materials that are vastly inferior to those used for production, resulting in weak and brittle parts. 3D printers are generally not designed for manufacturing scale. Confronted with this challenge, the adidas team shifted its focus to the possibility of 3D printing midsoles to unlock the design freedom needed to enhance shoe performance.ģD printing has previously been used mostly to prototype products in development before they were produced with traditional manufacturing techniques. Although they can be assembled from multiple parts through a labor-intensive process, this introduces multiple potential points of failure. Midsoles cannot be injection or compression molded in one piece with properties that vary across the part.

But their latest idea-creating shoes with variable properties across the midsole to improve shoe performance for different sports-presented a difficult hurdle.

In close collaboration with the Carbon team, adidas is leveraging the Carbon DLS process and EPU 41 3D printing material.Īdidas continues to challenge the industry with its relentless focus on innovation to improve the performance of athletic apparel. Together, we are developing the first mass-production process that makes previously impossible midsole geometries with revolutionary 3D-printable materials, paving the way for custom, high-performance shoes that meet the unique needs of each customer. Menu icon Three short horizontal bars, aligned parallel to each otherĪdidas and Carbon are creating the next breakthrough in athletic footwear, leveraging the Carbon Digital Light Synthesis™ (Carbon DLS™) 3D printing process to bring a new product and platform to life: Futurecraft 4D.