The Challenge
Orthopaedic footwear manufacturers face a long-standing problem: producing custom shoe lasts is labour-intensive, wasteful, and difficult to scale. Traditional CNC milling processes are subtractive by nature, and each shoe last requires significant manual input. Labour costs often make up as much as 80% of the total cost of production.
Peacocks Medical Group, a leader in orthopaedic footwear, felt held back by the limitations of existing technology. The production of bespoke shoe lasts, where precision and adaptability are critical, is limited by processes which are slow, manual, and wasteful; unable to scale for true mass customisation. They needed a new approach to enable business growth and further their commitment to being leaders of innovation in their industry.
The Partnership Approach
Recognising the potential of PolyMorphic Moulding as a solution, Fyous and Peacocks formed a technical partnership to solve this industry-wide problem. As a leader in innovation, Peacocks were keen play a critical role in the specification and design of their PolyMorphic Moulding machine to ensure it perfectly met the needs of all stakeholders and to ensure wider business-readiness for a smooth adoption.
During a formal 12 week Discovery period, Fyous engineers worked closely with Peacocks’ technical and operations teams to understand their current production environment in detail, and co-create the machine they needed to transform efficiency and unlock new business opportunities.
The Solution
Every machine we build will be judged on measurable outcomes. For Peacocks, the priority was improving the speed and reliability of custom shoe last production. We therefore agreed requirements including:
01 Speed Production of Lasts
02 Automation
03 Material Efficiency and Waste
04 Robust Quality Standards for Output Parts
05 Materials and Traceability Requirements
The Impact
The benefits are clear for Peacocks. Rather than a labour-intensive and wasteful milling process, automated production will free up skilled technicians to focus on higher-value tasks.
This partnership shows how Fyous works: by immersing ourselves in an industry to thoroughly understand its challenges, we can co-create solutions that deliver serious impact.
Discover PolyMorphic for Your Company
We specialise in designing and building custom machines tailored to the unique needs of your business. Whether you’re aiming to improve production efficiency, automate a manual process, or create something that’s never been done before, we work closely with you to understand the problem, engineer a solution, and deliver a machine that fits seamlessly into your operation. From concept to commissioning, every system we build is engineered for performance, reliability, and the specific outcomes you need.
Wherever existing processes create waste, labour bottlenecks or barriers to scale, PolyMorphic Moulding can offer you a smarter and more flexible path forward.
Peacocks Medical Group are pioneering an entirely new approach to manufacturing in their industry; what problems do you need to solve?
