The robotic arm moves with a quiet, deliberate grace. In On’s Zurich lab, there’s no frantic clatter of machinery, just the steady hum of innovation. As it spins a plastic foot mold, a nozzle deposits a fine, molten thread of thermoplastic polyurethane. In under three minutes, what was once a spool of raw material is now a seamless, laceless running shoe upper. This is LightSpray, and it’s not just automating a step in a factory; it’s reimagining the entire concept of how a shoe is born.
For decades, athletic footwear has been a feat of manual assembly—a puzzle of over 200 pieces cut, glued, and stitched together across continents. On’s process collapses that into as few as seven components. But the real story isn’t just speed; it’s the radical reduction in what co-CEO Caspar Coppetti calls “human work hours.” By designing a process only possible with robotics, On estimates it eliminates 200 to 300 hours of traditional development and production labor per shoe. This isn’t about replacing people on an existing line; it’s about building a new line where their role is fundamentally different.
This engineering-first DNA traces back to a piece of garden hose. As co-CEO David Allemann recounts, the company’s origin was a triathlete’s frustration with the trade-off between cushioning and speed. That spirit of prototyping—of asking if movement can feel better—never left. It simply scaled. Last year alone, On filed roughly 200 patents. Their athlete lab, a biomechanics fortress, uses high-speed cameras, force plates, and oxygen masks to dissect every stride. They test with elite runners like Helen Obiri, following her on bikes to gather real-world data. This obsessive iteration is what makes a three-minute robotic spray possible; it’s the culmination of a decade of invisible work.
The implications stretch far beyond a Zurich lab. LightSpray production has already expanded to South Korea. Coppetti frames the shift as “capex versus human labor,” a long-term economic bet that robotics will become increasingly viable. More intriguing is the potential geographical shift. If a robotic cell can make any shoe size on demand, the need for massive, single-size production runs in distant factories diminishes. Coppetti envisions smaller, localized micro-factories, dramatically shortening the supply chain and bringing manufacturing closer to the consumer. The promise is agility: the ability to respond to trends and demand with unprecedented speed.
Of course, On’s revenue remains a fraction of the $46 billion Nike or $29 billion Adidas behemoths. Yet its ascent to a $15 billion market cap underscores a potent truth: in a mature industry, a challenger can carve a path not just with marketing but with a proprietary manufacturing moat. The robot building a shoe in three minutes is a powerful symbol but it’s merely the output. The real innovation is the years of patented engineering, biomechanical research, and a culture that still starts with a simple, human question about better movement. The future of manufacturing, it seems, will be woven from threads of both data and daring.
- Quiet and deliberate robotic movement
- Reduction of components from 200 to 7
- Elimination of 200 to 300 human work hours per shoe
- Prototyping spirit driven by athlete frustrations
- Expansion of LightSpray production to South Korea
- Envisioning localized micro-factories
| Manufacturer | Market Cap ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| Nike | 46 |
| Adidas | 29 |
| On | 15 |
