Opportunity
Eekual Bionic GmbH, based in Cologne, Germany, specializes in designing and manufacturing personalized footwear using customer-specific measurements captured via their app. Founded in 2017, the company ships custom-made shoes globally. Facing production constraints, Eekual required a transformative solution to streamline their complex manual processes and achieve sustainable growth.
Challenge
- High Production Costs: Manual, repetitive design workflows led to losses per sale.
- Extended Lead Times: Orders took up to two weeks to fulfill, impacting customer satisfaction.
- Frequent Errors: Unstructured processes caused frequent, costly mistakes.
- Manual Process Tracking: Inefficient tracking and management of orders slowed operations.
Solution
1D.works implemented a fully automated digital build pipeline, fundamentally restructuring the production process:
- Defined and Structured Workflow: Clarified and standardized the previously vague design processes.
- Parametric CAD Templates: Created reusable, modular design templates to streamline customization.
- Automated CAD Integration: Developed a CAD plugin to automate design steps, prompting minimal manual input.
- Seamless Manufacturing Automation: Automated the generation and distribution of standardized production documents to the shop floor.
Clear ROI and Results
- Design Time Reduction: Reduced design time from 2 days to just 30 minutes per shoe pair (>95% efficiency gain).
- Cost Savings: Achieved a 90% reduction in personalized design costs.
- Faster Turnaround: Reduced lead time from 2 weeks to just 2 days (>80% improvement).
- Error Elimination: Completely eliminated human-induced design errors.
- Rapid Scalability: Simplified onboarding and enabled agile addition of new product lines.
With this solution, Eekual Bionic significantly reduced costs, dramatically shortened production times, and laid a robust foundation for rapid scaling and sustained profitability.