A technological standard for shoe machineries interfacing

In this paper we present the “technological Standard for Shoe-machineries Interfacing” (SSI) project, an interesting and innovative example of technological interface within an industrial district. The idea is a new standard data format enabling powerful data sharing among the different machineries and tools involved in the shoe manufacturing process, ranging from shoe design to mass production. The target is to describe “vertical” transfers (i.e. between different steps of the design/production chain), not “horizontal” transfers (e.g. to allow data exchange between CADs from different vendors). The standard has been conceived, designed and tested in collaboration with Assomac which is the Italian association of shoe machineries manufacturers with seat in Vigevano (Italy) where the most significant number of firms belonging to that area resides. A few of those firms provided significant collaboration in the standard definition and validation.