Profession footwear CAD patternmaker

Footwear CAD patternmakers design, adjust and modify patterns for all kinds of footwear using CAD systems. They check laying variants using nesting modules of the CAD system and material consumption. Once the sample model has been approved for production, these professionals make series of patterns (grading) to produce a range of the same footwear model in different sizes.

Personality Type

• Realistic / Conventional

Knowledge

• Footwear manufacturing technology

  Footwear processes technology and machinery involved. The footwear manufacturing starts in the cutting/clicking room , cutting the uppers and bottom components. The upper components are joined together in the closing room by following a precise order of specific operations: skiving, folding, sewing etc. The closed upper, the insole and other bottom components are brought together in the assembling room, where the main operations are lasting and soling. The process ends with finishing operations in the finishing and packing room.

• Footwear components

  Footwear components both for uppers (vamps, quarters, linings, stiffeners, toe puffs etc.) and bottoms (soles, heels, insoles etc.). Ecological concerns and the importance of recycling. Selection of suitable materials and components based on their influence on the footwear style and characteristics, properties and manufacturability. Procedures and methods in chemical and mechanical processing of leather and non-leather materials.

• Footwear quality

  Quality specifications of materials, processes and final products, the most common defects in footwear, quick tests procedures, laboratory tests procedures and standards, adequate equipment for quality checks. Quality assurance of footwear production processes and fundamental concepts on quality including footwear quality framework and standards.

• Footwear materials

  The characteristics, components, advantages and limitations of a wide range of materials used in footwear production: leather, leather substitutes (synthetics or artificial materials), textile, plastic, rubber etc. 

• Pattern grading

  Know about cutting patterns accurately and grading the patterns to obtain the size series in case of mass production. Know how to mark notches, holes, seam allowances, and other technical specifications. Make adjustments and obtain the final patterns for cutting in order to compensate any identified problems during sampling.

Skills

• Create patterns for footwear

  Produce the mean form or shell, a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional shape of the last. Create scaled patterns for uppers and bottom components by manual methods from the designs.

• Make technical drawings of fashion pieces

  Make technical drawings of wearing apparel, leather goods and footwear including both technical and engineering drawings. Use them to communicate or to convey design ideas and manufacturing details to pattern makers, technologists, toolmakers, and equipment producers or to other machine operators for sampling and production.

• Work in textile manufacturing teams

  Work harmoniously with colleagues in teams in the textile and clothing manufacturing industries.

• Use IT tools

  Application of computers, computer networks and other information technologies and equipment to storing, retrieving, transmitting and manipulating data, in the context of a business or enterprise.

• Operate 2D CAD for footwear pattern engineering

  Be able to read and interpret design specification to transfer 3D virtual models, computer made drawings and handmade sketches into the 2D environment of the CAD software. Flatten and work with digitised shells. Use scanners and tablets. Produce, adjust and modify 2D designs of all patterns, including technical specifications, for various footwear construction types with 2D CAD systems. Grade and make the nesting. Produce technical sheets.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB