Kotoni is a shoe manufacturer whom makes shoes for many brands throughout the world. When we learned which brands they make shoes for we all looked at our shoes and decided that it was pretty likely that some of our groups shoes where made by Kotoni. They have several plants around China, and we visited their HQ and one of their plants. We were amazed at how much manual labor is involved in making shoes. Not very automated. Every step (about 50 in total) is done by a different person on the assebly line. It was very interestiug to walk along the line from leather cutting all the way to putting in the box. This plant makes high end leather shoes. We met with five senior people, including two experienced guys from Italy. All five are serious shoe people! Making shoes is part art, part engineering and part labor.
Group pic in the conference room. It has shoe samples all around the edge.
Some pics from the factory...
Cutting the leather
Sewing the uppers
Pretty interested.
Preparing to glue sole
Lee talking to Ernie
Remember next time you put on shoes how labor intensive it is. A lot of skill and labor is needed for this.
