INTELLIGENCE: Recoding the Run

INTELLIGENCE: Recoding the Run


Engineers and chemists at Flex, a supply chain innovator specializing in manufacturing and computer hardware, invented a process whereby any material, soft or hard, can be neatly laser-cut into whatever pattern is needed, when it’s needed, right on the factory floor. “We are perfecting a process that allows precision cutting without any burning of the material in the process,” says Tom Fletcher, SVP of the Consumer Technologies Group at Flex. “We needed to develop a laser-cutting system that allows us to create a very flexible capability that can really perform across the range of materials and products required for this type of industry.”

Dennison thinks it’s only a matter of time before laser-cutting replaces manual cutting in mainstream manufacturing. “It’s like Paul Bunyan and the chainsaw, right?” he says. “At some point the chainsaw will win, and that’s the laser cutter.”

Beyond the lasers themselves, Flex has developed a new way to get cloth to the cutting machines. In the past, bolts of fabric had to be moved, unfurled, cut up, then pulled off the factory line and moved elsewhere. Flex’s alternative: a roboticized bolt holder that automatically feeds the line based on a specific shoe model and size.

Typically, a factory will do a big run of one shoe size at a time. But, in addition to the cutting itself, using laser cutters allows for much greater flexibility. “Instead of having all the materials stored in a back warehouse and having a team of people use big hydraulic presses and tools that cut out pattern pieces for footwear, they roll out this big laser cutter, they put the material in it, and they cut the material for the size 9, and then for the size 14, and then for the size 13, and it’s all digital,” says Eric Sprunk, chief operating officer at Nike. “You don’t have to change a die [cutter]; it’s just a laser. It’s great; it’s going to be a huge game changer.”

The laser and bolt holder are just two of several innovations that Flex has developed in conjunction with Nike. Because it doesn’t have a background in footwear, Flex designated a team that would learn in great detail what went into making a shoe and begin experimenting with techniques that could improve quality. “We went on Nike.com and ordered about 50 different pairs of shoes with the intention of literally taking them apart and seeing how they were made,” Fletcher says. “I even got a call from Beaverton, Oregon, from Nike.com, asking, ‘Mr. Fletcher, do you actually want to order 50 different pairs of shoes?’ And I said, ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’”