He received the honor of inventor for several distinctive and eye-catching shoes, which were described as looking like Slinkies or "space nipples," but Reebok's Bill McInnis no longer cared about products. As the head of Reebok Future, the former NASA engineer and company's 24-year veteran now focuses on process. What the shoe industry urgently needs is improvements in this area-especially in manufacturing.

Labor-intensive and unwilling to automate average production looks roughly similar to what it was about three years ago, and it usually takes place where the raw labor cost is the lowest.

"Everything you see in automation, computer assembly and car assembly: it doesn't really exist in footwear yet," he said.

McInnis led a team of 14 people, including engineers, designers, CAD experts and rapid prototyping experts, who tried to fix many of the old ways of assembling shoes. One effort is its liquid factory concept, a technology that robots "paint" shoes from polyurethane, which it believes can be scaled up to bring production closer to consumers.

"Cooperate with the factory and try to find out what the machine production line looks like, not a single, discrete machine like ours," he said of the current focus areas of the project. "All of these are new areas of the shoe industry, which are very attractive to me."  

McInnis joined the company after returning to school in 1994 to study for an MBA.

As a graduate of mechanical engineering, he worked at NASA for four years before earning a business degree, working on a project called Inertial Superior. The two-stage solid rocket project "brings satellites from low Earth orbit approximately 300 miles (482 kilometers) high to geosynchronous orbit."

For many young engineers, this may be a dream job. McInnis talked about this job with love, but he couldn't compare with the enthusiasm of his colleagues. McGinnis said that some of them have been working for 25 years and "still fascinated by every detail in the process."

"I like it a lot, but I don't like it like those people do, so I turned to footwear—although it disappointed my parents—because I needed to find something that I was also obsessed with."

The first sneaker that McInnis participated in was DMX in 1997. His role is inclined to product innovation.

These include the ATV19 released in 2013, which draws on the concept of all-terrain vehicle wheels and bodywork. The unusual design and the 19 lugs used for traction and stability have earned the shoe a lot of attention-some of which are confusing-it has been described by Mashable as having a "strange space nipple appearance".

Bill McInnis, head of Reebok's future.

Another novel design is the "ZigTech" model with a zigzag bottom, which McInnis said was inspired by the Slinky toy and its efficiency in transferring energy between the rings.

New, unorthodox designs will inevitably be regarded as gimmicks by some, especially in the consumer goods sector. When asked about the difference between innovation and gimmicks, McGinnis said that the former actually provides basic, measurable advantages in terms of performance.

"There are a lot of very visual techniques. I use air quotes around'techniques.' If you are blindfolded, put your shoes on your feet, and put another shoe made of simple old foam on you. On the other foot, you can hardly distinguish," he said.

The ultra-popular Pump shoes launched by the company in 1991 have developed rapidly in the past decade. McInnis led the brand revival through Pump 2.0 in 2005.

"People often say'this is a gimmick', but the truth is-if you are a basketball player in particular and you cheer up your shoes, especially those big pump room versions-you will feel very, very It's a big difference, and it's obvious."

According to the inventor, it is sometimes accused of being a gimmick because it is difficult to play the "translation game". This involves converting a set of technical improvements into a concise package for a non-technical audience.

"You have to make it simple enough to express it in the title," he said.

"Then leave the final perception to the world."

As in the example above, McInnis encouraged his team to set their sights on the world beyond footwear, looking for ideas for new craftsmanship.

This is the case with the Liquid Factory concept, which is borrowed from robotic polyurethane dispensers used to use gaskets in factories.

It is suitable for three-axis gantry machines that have been used in production. The materials from the polyol and isocyanate tanks are mixed in a mixing head above the dispensing nozzle and laid down at an industrially suitable speed.

The 3D printer produces Liquid Speed ​​patterns.

McInnis said that because 3D printing lacks options (as well as speed and cost), it is difficult to incorporate it into the shoe industry, and this process has improved it.

As an easy-to-understand and versatile industrial ingredient, liquid polyurethane can be made into finished products with different hardnesses, and can also be used for adhesive applications. This means that it is also possible to keep the mixture sticky without adding glue, thereby reducing another step in the manufacturing process.

"It creates three-dimensional things. Basically, you can make the extruder like a 3D printer to draw your spool unit, buffer platform, and traction platform in three dimensions," he said.

When asked about the cycle time, McInnis said that the head moves very fast and has been used in production. It does not require the material to be put into and removed from the mold, and no post-processing is required.

"In terms of cycle time, you get a fairly fair deal," he said. "As fast as existing manufacturing, or even faster."

This process was to produce a limited edition of the 300 sneakers sold last year, and "painted" the outsole and shoelace system.

"So work with the factory and try to figure out what the machine production line looks like, instead of a single, discrete machine like ours," McGinnis said.

Another project announced this year is the Cotton Corn project, but about five projects are in progress. The goal to be achieved this year (at least in a limited form) is to produce compostable shoes with cotton uppers and bio-based soles.

According to the company, the shoes will help to dispose of waste at the beginning (through the use of petro-based chemicals) and the end (through final landfilling) of the shoe's life cycle.

So far, the company has not "cracked the code" and has made simple non-midsole shoes with foam substitutes made from industrial corn propylene glycol manufactured by DuPont Taylor.

"We have to use special molds: these bottoms are injection molded instead of conventional compressed bottom units," McInnis said.

"Obtain the material so that it can flow normally because it is injection molded and will not burn in the mold... A lot of things that we have been used to in other projects, but when you see a brand new material , It always behaves differently."

What excites him is to improve the old molding procedures-or eliminate them completely in the case of Liquid Factory.

McInnis believes that after nearly 25 years in the footwear industry, it has not done enough in modernization. If it is to meet the consumer's demand for extensive discussions on improving sustainability and mass customization, significant measures must be taken.

"You can change the geometry, the hardness, the sturdiness, the responsiveness of the material, the color of the material, everything you do on the upper, almost you can think of," he said of the possibilities.

"Once you can go from having to make 50,000 pairs or 100,000 pairs of anything in order to make money down to'I can make 50 of them or 5 of them', you will get more customized, almost customized choices. Consumers . So now you can really dial in,'This is how I want it to feel. This is how I want it to look, this is the contrast between my shoes and yours."  

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