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The footwear industry constitutes an important sector of the economy of developing countries for the following reasons. Firstly, footwear may be considered as a basic needs item, following closely, in importance, other items such as food, shelter and clothing. Secondly, the manufacture of footwear uses relatively labour-intensive processes, and thus contributes substantially to employment generation. Thirdly, this sector can, in some cases, generate important backward linkages whenever leather is locally produced. Forward linkages are also generated in the marketing of footwear. Finally, developing countries enjoy a comparative advantage in the manufacture and export of footwear to industrialised countries: thus, this sector could be the source of much needed foreign exchange.
Given the importance of the footwear industry for developing countries, it is essential that socio-economic benefits derived from its expansion be maximised. In other words, the choice of footwear type and quality and that of technology and scale of production should be such as to contribute to the overall development strategy of a country. However, recent developments in the footwear industry of developing countries tend to indicate that many of the choices which are made - in terms of technology, scale of production and footwear type and quality - are not always in line with the adopted development objectives. Many developing countries have allowed the establishment of large-scale, capital-intensive footwear plants, often owned and operated by foreign investors. These plants have, in some cases, been responsible for the closing down of local small-scale factories although the latter produced good quality footwear at moderate prices.1 Furthermore, few countries offer effective assistance to small-scale footwear producers with a view to improving their competitiveness and profitability. Thus, developing countries have often allowed the establishment of what may be called a "technological dualism" in the footwear industry whereby large-scale, capital-intensive footwear plants compete against ill-equipped artisans and small-scale producers.
1 This may be explained by the prestige associated with footwear produced under internationally known brands.
The above considerations should not lead one to conclude that large-scale modern footwear plants should not be established under any circumstances. These plants may, in many cases, be justified (e.g. for the production of inexpensive plastic sandals or the production of footwear for the export market). It is only suggested that public planners and project evaluators should carefully Consider future large investments in this sector with a view to determining whether they are justified or whether small-scale production should be promoted instead.
In order to be able to better plan the expansion of the footwear industry, public planners and project evaluators need detailed technical and economic information on alternative footwear projects (e.g. scales of production, alternative manufacturing technologies, foreign exchange savings, employment effects). This information is also of great importance to potential shoe manufacturers who wish to invest limited funds in profitable projects. Unfortunately, the existing information is more relevant to industrialised countries' conditions than to those prevailing in developing countries. Thus, the technologies, footwear types and quality, and scales of production analysed or advertised in trade journals tend to reflect the market conditions of industrialised countries as well as their economic structures (e.g. relatively low unemployment rates when compared to those prevailing in developing countries (e.g. relatively abundant capital and foreign exchange, highly skilled labour). Consequently, the purpose of this technical memorandum is to partially bridge the information gap by providing information on technologies suitable for developing countries's conditions and circumstances, and by evaluating these technologies in the light of these countries' economic structure.
It is hoped that this memorandum will be of assistance to decision makers - entrepreneurs, public planners, project evaluators - concerned with footwear manufacture. It has been prepared in an awareness that it is often difficult in developing countries to obtain information on alternative footwear production methods k The primary concerns of the memorandum are to describe ranges of alternative ways of making footwear and to show how the most suitable combination of alternatives for a particular set of circumstances can be identified.
In recent years, there has been a tendency for the footwear sector in the developing world to become increasingly successful in exporting to industrially developed countries. Domestic markets in developing countries for locally produced footwear have also grown, partly at the expense of developed country exports. These new trends have resulted in the establishment of relatively large-scale, capital-intensive plants. Local enterprises with less access to technical information have thus tended to adopt manufacturing methods similar to those in 'turn-key' factories, at the expense of technologies more suitable to local conditions, especially at low scales of production.
Scale of output is only one of the factors affecting technical choice in the industry- As shown in Chapters Hand III, choice of footwear type, quality and durability is also a crucial factor. Low income consumers concerned with satisfying basic health needs or obtaining the foot protection necessary for many activities may, for example, be less concerned with the variety of styles available than with retail price. Generally, the narrower the product variety required from a manufacturing enterprise at a given level of output, the greater the level of mechanisation that can be economically justified.
Technical choice of manufacturing methods can also be affected by the level of specialisation in shoe parts. In addition to this scope for enterprises to supply a number of customers with components, a group of producers may share the use of common facilities for some manufacturing stages. Other considerations that can affect technical choices are the availability and cost of imported and locally produced manufacturing equipment and the cost of borrowing capital. Finally, the relationships between the levels of wages, manual skills and the working paces of operatives, and the degree of utilisation of capital equipment are extremely important considerations.
These factors are analysed in detail in chapters IV and V.
Chapters II and III contain descriptions of alternative manufacturing methods and equipment that can be used for the production of the following types of footwear:
Type 1: Leather-Upper, Cement-Lasted Shoes with Cemented-on Soles,Type 2: Leather-Upper, Cement-Lasted Shoes with Moulded-on Soles,
Type 3: Leather Upper, Tack-Lasted Shoes with Stitched-on Leather Soles,
Type 4: Welded-Synthetic Upper, String-Lasted Shoes with Moulded-on Soles,
Type 5: Stitched Synthetic-Upper, Cement-Lasted Sandals and Casuals with Cemented-on Built Unit Soles,
Type 6: One-Shot Injection Moulded Plastic Sandals.
Type 1, which is the subject of Chapter II, is, for our purposes, considered to be the standard method of construction. More space is devoted to Type 1 footwear than to the other five types because some of them can be made by processes used for Type 1. The chart of production stages in Figure I.1 illustrates how constructional features of the six types of shoe and sandal can be combined in a variety of ways.
The six constructional methods considered in this memorandum are only a small proportion of the possible combinations of methods shown on the chart. For example, shoes having stitched leather uppers and cemented-on prefinished soles could be lasted using tacks, cement or string, but only the combination involving cement lasting is dealt with. However, all the techniques required to construct the tack and string-lasted alternatives are dealt with in the context of other types. In all, forty-six different construction methods are possible using the alternatives shown in Figure I.1. Although these forty-six methods cover far from all the possible forms of footwear construction, it is likely that they account for about ninety per cent of the total output volume of non-rubber footwear. Rubber footwear are outside the scope of this memorandum.
Simplified cross-sections of shoes made on the basis of the adopted six types of construction are shown in Figure I.2. Readers who are unfamiliar with footwear manufacture may find it useful to consult the glossary of terms at the end of this memorandum.
The manufacturing sequence is listed at the start of the sections dealing with each of the footwear types covered in Chapters II and III. Each of the sub-process stages is given a unique operation reference number. Consequently, if a process is common to two or more footwear types, cross-references are made to avoid repeating the description of manufacturing techniques.
The operation reference numbering system is also used in the tabulations of technical data which follow the discussions of manufacturing methods that may be used at each stage. The tabulations cover a range of scales of output but do not include the details of each alternative technique mentioned in the text.
Figure I.1 Combinations of
construction methods
Figure I.2 Simplified cross-sections of footwear types 1 to 6
Types 1 and 5. Cement-lasted
cemented-on sole
Type 2. Cement-lasted,
moulded on sole
Type 3. Tack-lasted, machine-sewn
sole
Type 4. String-lasted,
moulded-on sole
Type 6. One-shot moulded
sandal (in mould)
The combinations of techniques described in Chapters II and III have not been chosen on the basis of specific sets of productivity levels, wage rates or the cost of various inputs. They have been selected on the basis of extensive analyses of footwear projects located in both developing1 and developed countries. Alternative production techniques were evaluated for each manufacturing sub-process, taking into account the range of wage levels, interest rates, labour productivities, equipment capacity utilisations etc. most prevalent in the majority of developing countries. Thus, techniques which could never be justified under the above range of values are not considered in chapters II and III. The alternative to this approach would have been to describe all alternative combinations of techniques used in the production of the six types of footwear, and to let the reader evaluate each alternative on the basis of local factor prices. This latter approach is not however feasible since it would have been necessary to describe thousands of alternative projects.2 Thus, the adopted approach consists in describing only those combinations of techniques which are relevant to developing countries' conditions. There may, however, be cases whereby particular circumstances could justify the adoption of combinations of techniques not covered in chapters II and III. The reader should therefore analyse additional combinations whenever he may feel that these could be more cost-effective than the alternative combinations described in the above chapters. The information needed to analyse other combinations of techniques is provided in the text of these chapters.
1 Some of the investigated footwear projects were located in Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica and El Salvador. Chapter IV provides detailed economic data for the Ethiopian and Ghanaian projects.2 The manufacture of a typical footwear requires as much as 31 operations. If two or three techniques may be used for each operation, the total number of combinations of techniques used in the production of footwear may be calculated at tens of thousands.
Equipment costs are quoted in U.S. Dollars at mid-1979 exchange rates. A list of equipment suppliers for each operation reference number is provided in Appendix II. The tabulations in Chapters II and III include descriptions of the production operation and of the selected equipment and method, the required quantity of each item and the source of the equipment (for example, locally made) and its approximate cost. It is assumed that an electricity supply is available for all scales of production. Equipment requiring compressed air systems is excluded at the small scales.
For Type 1 footwear, some additional data is provided at the end of Chapter II. The materials handling methods, associated workforce and estimated equipment costs that could be found appropriate in an enterprise manufacturing Type 1 footwear are detailed. The total production floor areas, including space for work in progress and aisles, together with block plans of factories suitable for producing 8 to 1,000 pairs of Type 1 footwear per day are provided. This information should also be relevant for the other types of footwear.
Summaries of the materials required for each type of construction are given in Table I.1. Since the amount of materials per unit of output is generally unaffected by the level of mechanisation of the manufacturing process or scale of production, this factor does not need to be taken into consideration when evaluating alternative production techniques used in the production of a given type of footwear.
The levels of output that are considered were selected to span a range from a very small scale to the largest manufacturing scale likely to be set up without considerable external assistance. Technical data is provided for four scales of production and for each of the six types of footwear. These scales of production expressed in terms of pairs produced per single shift day, are 8, 40, 200 and 1,000. They are referred to as Scales 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. These scales were selected because they are part of a geometric progression weighted towards the smaller volume end of the range.
An additional table shows for each footwear type the number of workers directly required for production at each manufacturing stage and for each scale of output.
While it is not intended for Chapters II and III to act as an instruction manual in footwear manufacture, it is hoped that the discussion of alternatives will serve several purposes.
First, readers from enterprises at present specialising in a limited range of techniques and types of footwear construction may identify possibilities for innovations in their products on the basis of information contained in this memorandum. Second, the attention of the reader is drawn to situations in which machinery is likely to reduce manufacturing times but not substitute for manual skills, or contribute to product quality conformance. Reducing operation times may not be a major objective in very small enterprises with spare manufacturing capacity. Equipment that only speeds up output may therefore be unnecessary.
Table I.1 Specifications of materials used in the construction of footwear Types 1 to 6
|
Footwear |
Upper components | |||
| |
Uppers |
Linings |
Stiffeners |
Puffs |
|
1 |
Leather |
Leather/synth. sheet |
Leather/board |
Solvent act. |
|
2. |
Leather |
Leather/synth. sheet |
Leather/board |
Solvent act. |
|
3 |
Leather |
Leather/synth. sheet |
Leather/board |
Leather/ solvent act. |
|
4 |
Synthetic |
Synthetic sheet |
Board/ thermoplastic |
Solvent act./ thermoplastic |
|
5 |
Synthetic |
Synthetic sheet |
None |
None |
|
6 | |
One shot moulded |
| |
| |
Bottom components | |||
| |
Insoles |
Bottom filler |
Shanks |
Soles/Heels |
|
1 |
Board |
Felt |
Steel/wood |
Prefinished units |
|
2 |
Board |
Felt/heel core |
Steel/wood |
PVC moulded-on |
|
3 |
Leather or board |
Felt/scrap leather |
Steel/wood |
Leather, built on shoe |
|
4 |
Board/synth. sheet |
None |
Steel |
PVC moulded-on |
|
5 |
Board |
Felt |
Steel/wood |
Resin sheets, units, built |
|
6 | |
One shot moulded |
| |
The third aim is to alert potential users to the wide range of manufacturing equipment and tools that are available. The choice of equipment that is described includes: machines specially designed to perform particular operations in footwear manufacture, general purpose tools and equipment which are not designed specifically for the industry but are suitable for some of the operations, and equipment that is not generally available commercially but that small enterprises could find useful and which could be produced in industrially developing countries.
Fourth, for each sub-process stage the description of the manufacturing methods and the tabulated technical data are presented as separate elements. As explained earlier, many of the technical elements dealt with in connection with each type of footwear can be combined to construct a range of other footwear types. The elements described can also be used whenever an enterprise only engages in a single stage or a few manufacturing stages. Thus, for example, the techniques suitable for insole preparation in a large enterprise undertaking all the manufacturing stages could be identical to the techniques appropriate in a very small enterprise which only prepares insoles in large numbers. This matter is further elaborated in Chapter V.
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