Having the certainty that a shoe is original and being able to trace its "history" simply by bringing it closer to your smartphone. Today this is possible thanks to innovative systems for physical-digital traceability and anti-counterfeiting of products developed by Marcom Import Export (Pieve a Nievole, PT), a company that has been producing custom-made steel sheets for the footwear sector since 1997, thanks to an advanced prototyping service with 3D technology. The company's flagship in the field of traceability is called Smart Shank: "thanks to the system," explains owner Marco Marucci, "any end consumer anywhere in the world can verify the originality of the product by subjecting the shoe to a simple test perhaps at the store of the brand itself, which would thus have the opportunity to develop to a marketing moment, while increasing the perception of transparency.
Smart Shank is an open source system that assigns each foil an RFID and NFC technology chip with two memories: one immutable that represents the product's identity card; the other recordable with a secret code chosen by the manufacturer, which allows the shoe to be identified within the entire supply chain up to the store. A very valuable aid, therefore, against counterfeiting. Another solution, guaranteeing traceability, is the new double-label box that provides all product data through barcodes and QR codes. "Digitally providing the data of each product batch is important," Marucci explains, "but for traceability to be truly functional it must have a 'physical' correspondence. At Marcom we keep a sample of each batch for two years, giving the customer the opportunity to view it if needed, even some time after purchase."
