International Shoe Machine Corporation

Gregory A Williams

Martin L Stein

Chenming Xue

China Ramanaiah Beeram

Dhanashree Havele

Mansi Sali

Sadreddin Hosseini

Sujan Mandal

Claudia Paola Ramirez

In an integrated system to achieve a number of operations on a footwear upper assembly, an automatic rougher that includes a roughing tool adapted to remove material--and hence rough--the cement margin (or bonding surface) of the footwear upper assembly to provide a cementing surface onto which an outer sole is later applied. The cement margin (or bonding surface), as is known in this art, typically follows a closed-loop path that rapidly changes in all directions of an X-Y-Z coordinate system and the roughing tool must be continuously re-oriented to the many direction changes of the cement margin in order to track the margin. According to the present teaching the upper assembly, and hence the cement margin thereof, is ordinarily moved in rotational movement, rocking movement, transverse translational movement, and, also, vertical translational movement (i.e., movement toward and away from the roughing tool) during the course of roughing. According to the present teaching, real-time data is assembled which may be used to achieve a later operation: e.g., the path of the cement margin is digitized and that digitized information is used to guide a cementer to apply adhesive unto the cement margin to adhere an outer sole to the upper assembly.

Roughing machine for footware upper assemblies and a system that

For use in a system that includes first and second machines to perform operations on a footwear upper assembly, a transfer machine that includes an activator arm assembly, and a gripper assembly rotatably and pivotally connected to one end of the activator arm assembly. The gripper assembly includes a pair of fingers with a gripper jaw pivotally secured to each of the fingers. The pair of fingers are movable toward and away from each other respectively to grasp and release the footwear upper assembly. The pivotal attachment of the jaws permits the jaws to adjust to the irregular profile of the footwear upper assembly, a situation which is enhanced by the geometry of the gripper jaws which permits contact between the jaws at regions spaced longitudinally along the footwear upper assembly and by choosing a jaw material that is soft enough to deform, and hence provide larger contact area between the upper assembly and the jaws.

Multi-station system to act upon footwear upper assemblies with transfer

Growing community of inventors

Litchfield, NH, United States of America

Gregory A Williams