Headquartered in Santa Maria a Monte (Pisa province), the MARUSKA shoe factory was established back in the ‘70s, when Giovanni Tempesti, founder and current, started designing collections and manufacturing shoes for American and European customers.
Over the decades, the customer base has been steadily growing, now including internationally renowned firms. Today, the shoe factory still retains craft and traditional systems, combined with cuttingedge technologies and exclusive materials, supported by strict quality control operations on both raw materials and end products.
The corporate structure allows to carry out the whole processing cycle, from the initial design up to the finished article. The pattern-making department, provided with two CAD systems, manages to develop and promptly manufacture every model, thanks also to the implementation of two cutting machines and to an inhouse binding division: it is a procedure that helps streamline the prototyping and sample-making processes and produce small volumes of top-quality articles. Strongly innovation-driven, the MARUSKA shoe factory has already fostered three pivotal research projects funded by the Tuscany Region within the framework of the 2009 and 2012 announcements, that is, ECO HT-Shoes (ECO High Tech Shoes – BU 2009), WIN-Shoes (When INnovation Makes Shoes – BU 2012) and Smart Shoes (The Smart Shoe Factory – BU 2014).
As for the excellent business relationships with SUED, featured in the other article, Giovanni Tempesti stated that, “in the last decade, said partnership has largely revolved around the three projects funded by the Tuscany Region. It is a remarkable step forward concerning not only to R&D activities, the latter a top priority for our brand, but also to work organization, an increasingly topical and strategic issue in the long term. The chance to have a structure, represented by a software programme, that allows us to monitor in real time, whenever necessary, the whole situation, is a real breakthrough. We hosted in our premises several entrepreneurs, owners of Italian enterprises, specifically interested in knowing how this system works and what kind of benefits it provides.”
The Smart-Shoes project has been launched to purposefully meet the new demands of the footwear sector as well. “Until ten years or so ago,” explained Tempesti, “the market focused on few articles and large quantities, while now the situation has somewhat reversed, given that the range of products available is wider, yet volumes are smaller. This change has inevitably affected work organization, since the context has become more complicated and the situation must be kept under control as a whole.” “Moreover, it is worth mentioning the fact that, when it comes to the footwear and fashion industries,” pointed out MARUSKA’s owner, “Italy is still a leader globally. Therefore, in addition to fine quality products, further enhanced by the creativity and talent of our designers and professionals, we need an overall system devised to meet the requirements of an increasingly demanding market as well, even with regard to delivery times.” www.maruska.it
