With Olympic competitions taking place in every corner of the French capital this summer, Paris is definitely the living heart of world sport in 2024. Japanese giant Asics is not to be outdone, having opened its Asics House in the 16th arrondissement. The sports giant, which generated sales of €3.4 billion last year, has created a space to welcome athletes and partners. It was also an opportunity to showcase a number of initiatives and innovations, including its Chojo Camp, a high-altitude training centre in Font-Romeu, its new, more ecologically responsible shoe called the Nimbus Mirai, and its Asics Personalization Studio initiative, which enables it to create customised soles for athletes in just a few hours.

This innovation was developed in collaboration with the laboratories of Dassault Systèmes, based in Ile-de-France, less than an hour from the French capital. Since the late 2010s, Asics has been deploying treadmills in some of its shops or with partners, enabling it to analyse its customers’ stride and offer them pairs of running shoes best suited to their needs. But in this project with the French technology company, the cursor is pushed much further. The partners have unveiled their modular structure for producing customised soles. Currently still being tested to meet the needs of top-level athletes, the solution promises to produce personalised soles using 3D printing. These will be tailored to the athlete’s morphology, as well as to his or her running style and needs. The partners are working to meet demand in less than an hour.

“We have achieved proof of concept. There are proven needs for sportspeople,” explains Benoît Dauchin from Dassault Systèmes. Individual soles can be adapted for performance, prevention, running on certain terrains, etc. The idea is to use virtualisation. It’s not just about the footprint. The virtual twin, i.e. a three-dimensional digital object, can be used to optimise a construction that specifically meets the needs of the runner.”

The project developed by Asics and Dassault Systèmes offers a number of opportunities for the sector. Firstly, the studio, which can currently produce around fifty products per hour, is set to increase in capacity. Above all, its studio is fairly compact and could potentially enable the brand to deploy this solution close to the places where products are used or consumed. In the coming months, it will be tested by Asics teams in Japan to further refine its model. But this solution could be aimed at the general public.

We are delighted to be working with Dassault Systèmes as part of our ‘Asics personalisation studio’,” says Mitsuyuki Tominaga, president and chief operating officer of Asics, in a press release. Our partnership leverages the expertise and advanced technology of two industry-leading companies to bring optimal value to every customer by enabling them to live healthier, more fulfilling lives with products that meet their needs.”

Secondly, the coupling between the data collected by the brand and the technologies deployed, notably by Dassault Systèmes, opens up a whole new world of possibilities. “Once we have a digital twin, we can test different scenarios. But what’s interesting is compiling these elements over time, then working with generative artificial intelligence. By linking it with elements of brand identity and CRM, for example, we can create highly targeted offers for riders. More broadly, moving from the real world to simulation elements, and then back to the real world, means that development times can be considerably reduced and we can rely on more scientific elements to create our products.”

So the heart of the matter remains data collection. But when it comes to sport, the added value for the athlete often means sharing their health history and training data, or recording their stride. The aim is to provide them with the best product for their needs. This new stage in product customisation, however, opens up new avenues to explore.

“When you train your model, integrating all the realities of your business, from the supply chain to the history of the brand, not forgetting marketing and production constraints, and you couple this with the data collected on a typology of customers, you could generate responses that best meet the expectations or needs of a group of individuals,” enthuses Benoît Dauchin.

It’s a development that could provide the best possible response to expectations in terms of comfort and support for recovery after performance or re-education after injury. Advances in technology, coupled with generative artificial intelligence, augur well for new offerings on the frontiers of well-being and health.