The Footwear Club

The addition of Delcam's Power Solution software has reduced mould production costs dramatically at Brazilian shoemaker Calçados Azaléia S.A., allowing the company to recover its investment in the software in less than six months. "With the volume and variety of moulds we make, we were able to achieve a return quicker than we originally forecast," commented Jeferson Georg, from Azaléia's Mould Production R&D.

Azaléia is the largest shoe manufacturer in Latin America, producing 45 million pairs of shoes per year, at an average of 150,000 pairs a day. 25% of the company's production is exported to over 70 countries around the world. Many of the shoe components, including soles, inner soles, and shoe decorations, are injection moulded in rubber, ABS, EVA, polyurethane, polycarbonates and other materials. With a range of 80 new shoe lines annually, all in different models, colours and sizes, around 8,000 moulds are needed for these parts each year, all of which are produced in the company's very well equipped toolroom.

For Ernesto Georg, Manufacturing Manager, the other important advantage provided by Delcam's software was its flexibility. This allowed its installation to proceed without the need for major changes to the company's manufacturing processes. "The software could be adapted by SEACAM, Delcam's reseller in Brazil, to our requirements, instead of us having to change to meet the system's limitations," he said. The ease of use was also important. Only one week's training was needed for the engineers at Azaléia to start using the software productively.

One of the leading contributors to the increased productivity has been Delcam's reverse engineering software, CopyCAD. This has resulted in improvements varying from 50% to 90%, when compared to the previous reverse engineering methods. "The more complex the geometry, the bigger the gain," explained Jeferson Georg.

"With the previous method, we would have to use a probing system to digitise the complete mould. Now, only a few profiles need to be digitised. These are sufficient to build a basic model in CopyCAD, which can be passed onto Delcam's PowerSHAPE hybrid modeller for completion of the 3D model."

Although reverse engineering is widely used, many projects start from a 2D design, or even a sketch produced on the drawing board. These are then developed using PowerSHAPE, to produce first the core and cavity shapes, and then the parting lines, injection channels, and other mould components.

From PowerSHAPE, the part is sent to Delcam's CAM system PowerMILL for the development of machining programs. "In PowerMILL, we decide which cutting tools to use and the best strategies to cut the mould in either steel or aluminium," explained Jeferson Georg.

"Before we were used PowerSHAPE and PowerMILL, we needed many more hours of work to develop each mould, making the entire process expensive," remembers Jeferson Georg. "Now, our mould production costs have been dramatically reduced. Moulds that would previously have cost between $1,500 and $2,500 are being produced for $900 to $950," estimated Jeferson Georg.

Part of the time savings came through reductions of up to 70% in programming times. Machining times were also substantially reduced. "The mould tool for a sandal would typically take 40 hours to be machined. With PowerMILL, it can now be finished in 18 hours," claimed Jeferson Georg. Another benefit of using PowerMILL has been the reduction in cutting tool costs. "Tooling costs, due to breakages, used to reach $12,000 per year, whereas today breakages have been reduced to a minimum," he added.

Calçados Azaléia S.A. was founded in 1958, in the city of Parobé. Today, the company is one of the largest shoe companies in the world, with production plants and sales offices throughout Brazil and also in the USA, Chile, Peru, Colombia and the Czech Republic.

Azaléia has always been a leading supplier to the women's shoe market with its Azaléia and Dijean brands. More recently, the company added the Olympikus range, which includes sportswear clothing and accessories, as well as the widest range of sport shoes made in Brazil. 14% of all sport shoes sold in the country are Olympikus, with the Asics brand giving Azaléia an even larger total market share. During the latest Pan-American games, which took place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 721 people, amongst them technical committee members and 479 athletes, were wearing Olympikus sporting cloths and sport shoes.

For further information on Delcam's Power Solution software, please contact: -
Peter Dickin, Public Relations Manager
Direct phone: 44 (0)121 683 1081 e-mail: marketing@delcam.com

Delcam plc
Small Heath Business Park
Birmingham, B10 0HJ, UK
www.delcam.co.uk

Delcam Inc.
3270 Electricity Drive
Windsor, Ont. N8W 5J1, Canada
www.delcam.com