Adidas Will Launch The First Commercial 3D Printing Shoes By The End Of The Year.

3D printing has become a fashion in the pursuit of cutting-edge technology in large-scale retail brands to attract consumers in a large scale. But for sports shoe giant Adidas, mass market 3D printing products will soon become a reality.

The value of Adidas Futurecraft 4D is 300 dollars, and the soles used the latest 3D printing technology. This may be Adidas's first commercial 3D print sports shoes.

In the pursuit of cutting-edge technology in large-scale retail brands to attract consumers in a large scale, 3D printing has become a kind of

But for sports shoe giant Adidas, mass market 3D printing products will soon become a reality.

Adidas Futurecraft 4D

Adidas plans to launch 100 thousand pairs of 3D print shoes by the end of this year, and its plastic soles will be made by the new 3D technology of Carbon, a start-up company of Silicon Valley.

James Carnes, vice president of Adidas brand strategy, said that in the next few years, Adidas will also increase its output to millions of pairs.

"We have a very radical plan," Carnes said.

"We are expanding production, which will make us the world's largest manufacturer of 3D printing products."

Carbon CEO and co founder Joseph DeSimone said that in the third quarter alone, Adidas could get enough printers from the Carbon to produce 1 million double 3D prints.

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After the launch of Futurecraft 4D, Adidas did not disclose when the number of remaining 100 thousand pairs would be released.

As the first pair of commercialized 3D print sports shoes, Futurecraft 4D was sold at the select store in New York and ran out in January.

Some of them get several times the original price of auction on the sports shoe auction website StockX.

Want to know how much Adidas imagines the new 3D business? Carnes compares its potential with Adidas's popular Boost shock shoes.

In 2013, Boost shoes were launched for the first time, and the number of them was 100 thousand pairs. Now the Boost shoe series has expanded to more than 50 million pairs each year.

This is more than 10% of Adidas's 400 million - double production per year, Carnes says.

The first meeting from Adidas and Carbon to Futurecraft 4D was released in January, and it took only 11 months.

This technology will also shorten the product cycle and create a "on demand" mode to reduce inventory. Carnes said Carbon technology will help Adidas achieve all these goals.

Carnes, who has worked in Adidas for 22 years, describes carbon fiber technology as a traditional 3D printing process. It requires injection molding and laser hardening of powdered polymers.

Therefore, Adidas is no stranger to 3D printing, and has used it for 16 years of prototype shoes. But due to time and cost, various forms of traditional 3D printing technology can not be applied to mass production.

In contrast, Carbon's "digital photo synthesis" technology uses light and oxygen to create plastic objects such as moving soles from the resin pool. There is no scrap and no injection molding. Any design can be adjusted and customized, and then printed by cloud based software model.

This means that Adidas can finally try to scan consumers' feet at stores and collect data, such as their gait.

Carnes said that the new printing process is 100 times faster than the traditional 3D shoe technology.

"This is how 3D printing will shape retail formats in the future," he said.

The new 3D printing technology not only has the advantage of traditional 3D printing, it may also reshape Adidas's production mode.

Futurecraft 4D only took 11 months from beginning to end.

By contrast, the production of a pair of trainers from a regular factory can take 15 to 18 months from the design to the store.

Carnes added that it may take 8 months to use the steel mold needed for the prototype alone.

"We are in an industry driven by new things.

With this new 3D technology, we can make products locally and shorten the pportation time.

In terms of cost, we don't need to produce a complete mold, "Carnes said.

For example, the vast majority of Adidas

Made in Asia, the Futurecraft 4D shoes launched in New York are about an hour away from the headquarters of Adidas Herzog Olah, Germany.

Adidas said that the rest of the 100 thousand pairs of 3D print sports shoes this year will come from the factory or Carbon's office in Silicon Valley.

Adidas is one of the key investors behind Carbon and has an executive in the Carbon board.

This may give Adidas a place in the competition with Nike and Andrew, but they also have their own 3D technology.

"Carbon has other technologies that no one else has used," Carnes said. "What they are doing is revolutionary."