Pilot lines were designed as a smaller capacity with 480 pairs per day from traditional 2000 pairs. This change was to be flexible to customer demand which were ’many products, small quantity’. Stockfitting (midsole and outsole attaching) and assembly line also were changed with introducing NIR (Near Infrared) heating technology. It helped to reduce the […]

In 1998, Manufacturing R & D team was looking for a change in manufacturing approach. At that time, lots of companies were adopting ‘Lean’ and ‘6 sigma’ as business transformation methodology. After researching which way to go, Nike finally decided to go with Lean for footwear operation transformation. In the mean time, one of Nike […]

Nike wanted to transformed the overall processes of footwear manufacturing radically with Lean. It would not started Lean journey if they would do some 7 wastes hunting or 5S. For about +50 years, footwear had been produced as much as same way regardless of companies and countries where they operated. Big batches of components were […]