Depth Secret: Italian Footwear Industry Core Competitiveness

This year's Italian footwear industry has recovered from the recession of the past few years, not only maintaining a higher level of output and value than in the past, on the whole, the unit price of Italian footwear exports has grown more than in the past. In the process of a new round of industrial transfer in the world footwear industry, can Italy’s status as a shoemaking kingdom be preserved? And how can the Italian footwear industry maintain its competitiveness in the fierce competition? We visited a number of related individuals who told us one by one the secrets:

Despite nearly ten years in Asia, the footwear industry in mainland China, especially in China, has been developing rapidly. It has caused great impact on some small and medium sized manufacturers in Europe and the United States and some manufacturers of low-priced shoes. However, most of Italy’s mid- to high-end footwear manufacturers The impact is not great. Because their competition is not in the same position. The ex-factory price of Italian high-end shoes is mainly 100-300 euros, while the shoes exported by China are generally under 20 euros, the value difference is 8-15 times, and the value has such a huge difference that the market sales target is also different. , Asia's low-priced products mainly to popular products (trendy products) to meet the majority of consumer groups. What this group of people are pursuing is either trend, fancy, or personality, or it is affordable, durable, and economical. The medium and high-priced products in Italy are mainly targeted at high-income people in economically developed countries and regions such as Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea. These people emphasize fashion, taste, texture, and have a strong identity with the brand, so consumer prices are For a group of people, it does not cause major obstacles. Just like a L. V handbags sell between 1000 Euros and 1200 Euros. The sales volume does not have much impact. This group of consumers cares about their feelings irrespective of prices. Therefore, the Italian footwear industry uses advanced manufacturing technologies and changes for the global high-end consumer market. Fashion creativity creates unique competitiveness.

In response to this position, in fact, this is a small number of markets, which require personality and differentiation. This is precisely the advantage of the Italian footwear industry. The majority of the Italian footwear industry is small and medium-sized enterprises. The number of people in the footwear industry is 30-100, and it can achieve very high flexibility. Both the number of orders and special production requirements can meet the needs of customers. Instead, it is mostly in Asia. Export-oriented companies are relatively large in scale and will be relatively weak in satisfying customers' flexibility.

Reaction speed: Another characteristic of small and medium-sized enterprises is the fast response. In fact, the recession of the Italian shoe industry was not so much impacted by low-priced products in Asia as it was in the United States and Europe. Competition, because in the past few years is a major transformation of the world's footwear industry, in Italy, there are many established companies for many years despite the quality is very good, but to meet the new needs of customers is not enough. Over the years, they have produced similar things but lacked innovation consciousness. They gradually lost the consumer and were eliminated by the market (not adapted to the rapid change in the era of network economy and lack of competitiveness). Nowadays, the footwear industry that survived has a lot of competition. We are constantly introducing new products through high-speed reaction speeds to meet the needs of the market and win a wider market.

Technology leadership: The wages of Italian footwear industry workers are 5-10 times that of the Asian region. Their product prices are also the same proportion, so they will not feel great pressure. At the same time, they attach great importance to the progress of technology, and constantly with the shoes. The machine industry communicates with the shoe industry to provide more efficient products to increase productivity and achieve cost reduction. Like our Rink system (group production method), JIT system (lean production method) is very popular in Italy. Take SIMAC Italy Bologna International Shoes Machine Show as an example. High-tech CNC machines occupy the exhibition area. More than 50 percent of the products are involved in the production of leather, shoemaking, shoe making, midsole, large-bottom manufacturing, molds, heels, trims, hardware accessories, etc., for the same production time efficiency Significant improvement, such as cutting in the bottom part of the computer: Italy, a dual-head computer leather cutting machine 12 hours production can cut 1000 pairs of women's shoes, the efficiency is 5-8 times the manual cutting. A mid-bottom molding line can produce 10,000 pairs of midsole in 8 hours operation per person, which is equivalent to the production efficiency of 15-25 people on the domestic market. The belt automatic production line can produce 10,000 belts with 4 individuals operating for 8 hours. It is our domestic counterparts. 5-8 times. The new products produced by the leading front and back manufacturers not only make the shoes get a perfect finish, but also through 40 minutes of constant technical innovation, the Italian footwear industry has a strong competitiveness in the overall technical equipment. The production efficiency is 20-40 times that of manual climbing shoes, and the high-speed setting system can shorten the shoe setting from the past 3-4 hours.

Excellence: To win the choice of the people who have the most discerning eyes in the world, products need to be constantly improved and kept improving. There are many machines and equipment in Italy that are manufactured to make the products reach a little better, such as sole massage machines, laminating and pressing machines, large-bottom milling machines, computer folding machines, shoe nailing machines, etc. In the country, it is basically useless, because it can be used to achieve very close results, but the Italian shoe manufacturers will regard these small needs as a major event to deal with, through the use of their creativity to design the machine Come out, make the quality of the product a bit better, a little bit better...

Creative design style: In the words of Italian designers, "We are not just selling products, but selling an idea, but also selling a lifestyle." Most companies in Italy are leading the market in product development. They combine a variety of fashion elements through artistic imagination and combined with superb shoemaking technology to continuously produce a beautiful product. Although the information is now very fast, as the Italian designer put it, "Good things are always behind!"

Abundant sources of materials: Italy leads the world footwear industry with its technology and creativity. Another important source of its success is the abundant sources of shoe materials. Numerous shoe manufacturers will introduce very distinctive shoe materials every quarter, from shoe lasts, leather, heels, big bottoms, forming bottoms, metal buckles, shoe uppers, footwear chemicals, sewing techniques, etc. All are related to each other. Many designers in Italy can create a steady stream of excellent products through a rich source of material and rich imagination. Regardless of the effectiveness and timeliness of communication, other countries and regions do not have this condition. The advantage.

High degree of coordination: Although European workers have a short working time but work efficiency is very high, there is a very high degree of coordination between the shoe industry and the shoe industry. They try to use computer networks and high-tech production methods to achieve speed and The perfect combination of quality. A shoe factory develops a shoe lasting just over one hour, and the supporting midsole only takes ten minutes to make a matching outsole. It takes only one hour or more to cut from large negatives to make a big bottom. Almost all use 3D shoe-like design software virtual design, 2D opening to leather model cutting takes less than an hour, in the case of a fully equipped product designer to design a shoe to sample production is completed in just over two hours.

Cost reductions in the transfer of production links: With the development of Eastern Europe and the economic development in North Africa, the footwear industry in Italy has also made full use of the convenience of the geographical environment. It has shifted some of the production processes of the footwear industry to Eastern Europe and North Africa where the aircraft distance is less than four hours ( Workers in some developing countries in North Africa need only 1 euro/day for wages. After the uppers or shoe materials and accessories are processed, they will be shipped back to Italy and assembled in Italy. Then they will be marked with "MADE IN ITALY" and sold to the whole world. Can still maintain a high level of profitability.

Italian footwear industry has the advantage of establishing the “shoe kingdom” with the above competitive advantages. Compared with China’s footwear industry, there is a huge space for development with this goal, and our footwear manufacturing industry should use this as Jian, enhancing the R&D strength of the technology, satisfying customers and creating demand are the best ways to get rid of low-price and disorderly competition.