Approach for Intelligent Design and Manufacturing of Footwear for Diabetic Persons

Diabetes and arthritis are major foot health related diseases, impact on a large percentage of European and world population, and are set to grow in next 30 years. Footwear is fundamental to influencing foot health status not only because good footwear can be beneficial, but also because poor footwear can cause so many serious problems. There is thus an increasing health care need driving the research into improved “intelligent” design and manufacturing technologies. This paper faces this problem by studying a new approach to develop proper shoes for people with diabetes able to reduce foot problems by implementing the following key issues: customization, rapidity and comfort. Main research goals can be achieved by basing the whole footwear product development process on the integration of innovative technologies and techniques to support shoes customization for diabetic persons such as new biomechanical CAD systems, new foot scanning devices, new manufacturing methods and new comfort measurement tools. The paper is focused on the description of the adopted approach and some preliminary results about the innovative supporting systems.