Ultimate Outdoors Visit Asolo Factory

Ultimate Outdoors Visit Asolo Factory 5th October 2007

In September Andy and John from head office were lucky enough to visit the Asolo head office in Italy and factory in Romania. The aims of the trip were to meet the family who own and run the company, meet and see the design and development team at work, see the processes and skills needed to make a top quality boot and find out why our customers should invest in an Asolo boot rather than a cheaper, poorer quality alternative.



The owners of Asolo, the Zanatta family, have been involved in boot making in the Monte Belluna region of Italy for over four generations. This area of the country has been the heart of boot making for the outdoor industry for many years with other brands such as Scarpa and Zamberlan all close by. Although Asolo's main factory is now in Romania, the passion for boot design and development in the Monte Belluna region is still as strong as ever. All of their research, development, prototype construction and global business is conducted from Italy as well as the construction of all their plastic mountaineering boots. The chief designer has worked for the Zanatta family for over 25 years and the head of research and development has worked in the business for 36 years. In fact the least experienced person in that department has ‘only' got 8 years experience! (Strange but true fact: the lat and long co-ordinates on the tongue of every Asolo boot is the location of the head designer's desk!)



Since buying Asolo from the Benetton group several years ago, turnover has increased dramatically and from the start the family's approach was "evolution not revolution". They would rather take the time required to develop new products than rush through something inferior. Production currently stands at 450,000 pairs of boots per year but with a second factory being planned in Romania, this is set to increase by another 25%.

If two phrases sum up the Asolo operation it must be "attention to detail and quality". All the raw materials come through Italy and are checked for quality and consistency. That means every single outsole, every piece of leather, each roll of synthetic fabric etc... Marco (the Chairman) receives a quality control report on his desk every day so that if a problem is discovered production in Romania can be halted until it is resolved.

Another example of their attention to detail is in the design of the outsoles. Asolo design all of their own outsoles (rather than buy "off the shelf" as some boot manufacturers do) and this allows them to match the three dimensional features of their uppers and lasts with the three dimensionally designed outsole so that they are a perfect fit. This process does not come cheap at $2,500 US dollars per pair of outsoles, per size, per boot style but the Zanatta family believes this kind of attention to detail produces a far superior boot. These designs are then given to Vibram who produce the high quality sole unit we have come to expect from them.

Once the raw materials arrive in Romania the complex and fascinating business of making the boots begins. There are 18 production lines with 20 quality control lines all under the watchful eyes of Mario the owner of the factory and Flavio, the production manager. There are 380 employees all of whom go through two to three months of training before being allowed to actually start making the boots that we get to sell in the stores. Before this they work in on a training production line to learn the skills required. In a nutshell the processes involved are: cutting the leather/fabric, stitching it into an upper, making the Gore bootie, attaching the Gore bootie, attaching the midsole (also known as lasting), attaching the outsole, lacing and then boxing.




All through this production process, quality control managers are constantly checking every pair of boots along the way. Any found below standard are set aside and inspected by Flavio or his assistants who then decide if the parts can be reused or not. Despite all this checking in Romania, once the boots are finished they are shipped back to Italy where 25% of them are checked at random just to maintain standards! Asolo make all of their own Gore booties and test every single one! They do this by inflating the bootie and then submerging it into water and checking for any escaping air.

To ensure consistency of fit across a boot style, a lot of care is taken in the construction of the lasts that each boot is built around. These are first made of wood and trimmed to a precise fit according to the designers' wishes. Once happy with this prototype, dozens are made from resin which are then used in the factory to construct the boot on.

One of the most important parts of the process is the cutting of the material used to make the upper. The designers in Italy produce a sheet telling the cutters how best to cut each piece of material so as to waste as little as possible. The knives used to cut are really like giant cookie cutters and are placed on the material, one at a time, and then quickly punched down to "cut out" the piece. Each set of knives costs tens of thousands of pounds and continually need replacing. Once cut, each batch of material is then checked by hand for quality and accuracy!




The stitching phase is another very skilled process where virtually all the work is done on non automated sewing machines, calling for incredible accuracy from the operators. For example, look at a double line of parallel stitching on an Asolo boot. They are not stitched on at the same time, but done separately by different machinists! If any stitching comes too close to the first line of stitching, the boot fails quality control and is rejected! This may be the reason other manufacturers tend to avoid double lines of stitching, even though it gives a far stronger seam.


Although all the stages in the process are vital, the "lasting" of the boot could be considered one of the most important to get right. This is where the shape, volume and overall construction needs to be 100% accurate to ensure the designer's intentions are met and the boots are a consistent size and volume right across the size range.



The photo above shows all of the components coming together for the lasting. On the top is the completed leather upper with the white Gore bootie visible. Below this is the last for that boot model in that size. Below this is the outsole. On the table you can see the red last ready to have the upper placed over it and a pile of white midsoles. Glue is applied to the base of the upper and Gore bootie and then the white midsole, or lasting board as it is also known, is stuck onto it. After this the upper is laced with non stretch string which prevents the upper becoming mis-shapen during the next process. It is then heated to soften the leather ready to be stretched around the last so that the upper lies flat on the underside of the midsole ready to receive the outsole unit. Before that happens, the leather is ground to create a textured surface to ensure the outsole glue can key into the leather.

Before the outsole is glued on, masking tape is applied around the upper to protect the leather from the glue which is also applied by hand. Once glued, the uppers and outsoles pass through a machine which rapidly heats them to help the glue bond the two pieces together. The person who attaches the outsole then has about 30 seconds to attach the outsole, align it correctly, remove any excess glue and check for general faults all before the glue dries! The boot is then placed in a press where water filled bags are applied under high pressure to evenly force the outsole onto the upper. This reduces the chances of a poor attachment and ensures that the outsole on an Asolo boot is unlikely to come away from the upper.


The boot has now entered the final stages of its creation, but there is still time for yet more attention to detail and quality! Every single boot has its tongue pressed so that it sits centrally in the boot. Just look at the photo below to see the difference. The leather on the ankle cuff is also hand ironed to improve appearance! Next comes the almost unbelievable sight of each boot being laced in less than 30 seconds by staff who also have to ensure that there are no twists in the laces! They being boxed up whilst at the same time being checked that the boot sizes match the size on the white sticker on the box. In one final demonstration of attention to detail, the lady who applies the white sticker, does so by hand and I challenge you to find any stickers that are not on straight! Considering she probably does this 300 times a day its no me an feat!



Once all this is completed the boots are transported back to Italy where, as was mentioned earlier, 25% of them are randomly checked again for quality and finish! Only then will they be sent to our stores ready for us to sell and for our customers to wear. In the increasingly automated, time pressured world that we now live in, it was very refreshing and eye opening to witness a skilled process being carried out with such dedication to quality and detail. The next time I am investing in a new pair of boots this is certainly something I would will bear in mind.