Sporting goods producers use 3D-printing for prototypes

Prototypes and
custom shoes

At Nike
they produced the sole of a sports shoe with studs for American Football
players for the first time through 3D-printing. Earlier that had to be done by
injecting plastic into a mould, but now it can be done by a printing technique
that puts thin layers of plastic on top of each other. This makes it possible
to create a custom shoe for every player without having to create a different
mould.

Rival
Adidas is also using the technique during production: Before 3D-printing Adidas
needed 12 people to create a prototype, now two people suffice. The lead time
has also been reduced from 4 to 6 weeks to 1 to 2 days.

Still too
slow for mass production

Shane
Kohatsu, marketing director at Stratatys, the company that is responsible for
3D-printing at Adidas, Reebok and Nike tells the Financial Times the process is still far from fit for mass production, but they are slowly getting there.

The biggest
problem for mass production is the speed: it takes about two hours to create a
sole through 3D-printing.