On boosts Busan robotic 3D-printing output 30x with 32-robot plant ahead of Cloudboom Strike 2 launch

On has scaled up robotic 3D-printing production at a newly built, fully automated factory in Busan, South Korea, ahead of the July 30 domestic launch of the second-generation Cloudboom Strike. Thirty-two robots at the Busan plant turn out roughly 1,000 pairs a day, versus the four-robot pilot line On had been running at its Zurich headquarters, a more than 30x jump in output. Each robot forms a shoe upper by extruding filament in overlapping layers around a foot-shaped last, a process that takes about three minutes and requires no cutting, gluing, or stitching, down from work that previously ran for weeks.

The move fits a broader push to compress footwear manufacturing steps that have long depended on manual cut-and-sew labor. Adidas separately reissued its Climacool Rayed using Digital Light Synthesis, printing the shoe as one continuous structure and cutting turnaround from 60-90 days to a single day, while New Balance's Korean licensee E-Land World is using AI to shorten design review cycles from about six weeks to roughly a day. Taken together, the moves point toward production capacity sited closer to demand markets rather than concentrated in low-wage manufacturing hubs.

If robotic cells keep pace with On's Busan ramp, competitiveness in athletic footwear may hinge less on scale-driven unit cost and more on how efficiently a brand runs its automated equipment.