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wo prominent European footwear manufacturers, Rotta from Italy and Pikolinos from Spain, are reported to be working with research and development teams and technology providers to examine new and better ways of incorporating robotics into fashion footwear manufacturing.

As well as the two shoe manufacturers, four research centres—Tekniker-IK4 and Inescop from Spain; CNR-ITIA from Italy and DFKI from Germany—are involved in the project, known as Robofoot. Four technology providers— COMAU and QDesign from Italy, and Robotnik and AYCN from Spain—are also taking part.

Robofoot’s stated aim is to bring robotics to high-end European fashion footwear manufacture and the European Commission has funded it because it knows European manufacturers still have a commercial advantage in this segment of the shoe industry. However, making fashion

shoes in Europe is an expensive business because many of the processes involved require manual labour. Greater use of automation should help European companies stay competitive in the global market.

Work on Robofoot began in September 2010 and will continue until February 2013. The European Commission has provided €2.5 million in funding from its Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7). This programme is the European Union’s chief instrument for funding research over the

Technology providers including Italian firm Comau are taking part in the Robofoot project because they believe robotics can improve the performance and competitiveness of fashion shoe manufacturers in Europe.

Research centres, technology providers and two footwear manufacturers are working together to find ways of using robotics to make high-end fashion footwear in the most efficient and most competitive way possible.