The Portuguese footwear industry exported 1,718 million euros in 2025. European markets grew by 3.3%. The American market fell by 12.3%. Anyone still managing 800 to 1,200 SKUs per collection with spreadsheets and intuition will feel that asymmetry in 2026 — not as a trend, but as orders that never arrive. This article is not a neutral survey of best practices. It is an argument: most footwear factories in Felgueiras and Guimarães have the data they need — the problem is that it is scattered, delayed and outside the system. Solving this before the next visit from the international buyer is not an IT project. It is a commercial survival decision.
What you need before you start
Before tackling any operational challenge, confirm that you have these foundations. Without them, any improvement is cosmetic.
The complete mapping of the product's variation axes — model, colour, size, width, fitting — has to be recorded in the system, not just in the head of the collection manager. Batch traceability from raw material (leather, sole, lining) through to the dispatched pair is mandatory to comply with the ESPR in force since July 2025. The cycle time data per stitching and lasting operation, even if approximate, has to exist somewhere. The order history for the last 24 months by customer and reference has to be accessible in under ten minutes. And the real safety stock of critical components — not what is in the system, but what is physically in the warehouse — has to be known before any collection planning.
Also confirm who the IT manager is — internal or external — who understands the integration between the production system and invoicing. And check whether the invoicing software is certified by the AT and issues ATCUD in accordance with DL 28/2019. If these last two questions cause hesitation, start there.
Dimension 1 — Product complexity: the problem that generalist ERPs do not solve
A women's footwear collection with 120 models, 8 average colours per model and 7 sizes generates more than 6,700 SKU combinations. Add widths and fittings and it easily exceeds 10,000 active records per season. No generalist ERP was designed for this.
The practical result is always the same: items are created manually, with naming errors, and production planning starts from inconsistent data before the first order is issued. The team works around it with Excel. Excel diverges from the ERP. When the German buyer requests an order confirmation file, the sales manager spends two hours reconciling data that should be the same thing.
SKU complexity in footwear is not a catalogue problem — it is a data architecture problem. Solve it at the root or you will rebuild the same Excel in every collection.
The most common mistake we see is not the absence of a system — it is having a system that does not natively model the product's variation axes. There are factories with ERPs installed ten years ago that still create variants manually each season because the system does not support colour × size × fitting matrices without customisation. Every season, the same work. Every season, the same errors.
Before any system decision, audit how many active SKUs exist in the ERP versus how many exist in the sales team's spreadsheets. The difference between those two numbers is the real size of the problem. Then confirm whether creating a new reference automatically propagates to purchasing, production and invoicing — or whether someone has to enter the same data in three different places.
Dimension 2 — Traceability and ESPR: from obligation to sales argument
The European Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), in force since July 2025, imposes increasing requirements for material traceability, durability and repairability. For footwear, this means that major European buyers will demand digital product passports before signing contracts for 2026/2027. Not as a possibility — as a condition.
Most Portuguese factories have the data. The leather is on a receipt sheet. The sole is in a warehouse record. The gluing process is on a paper production order. Consolidating this retroactively is expensive and time-consuming. Building the traceability flow natively into the production system — from material receipt to dispatch of the pair — is the investment that distinguishes those who will renew contracts with European brands from those who will lose out to Turkish or Moroccan competition.
The warning sign is already visible: identify which customers requested material compliance documentation in the last 12 months. Those are the first. In 2026, it will be all of them. Map every material entry point and confirm that there is a batch record with date and supplier. Check whether the production order links the material batch to the finished pair and to the customer order. If it does not link, that is the most urgent gap to close.
Dimension 3 — Markets: replacing the US, growing in Europe
The APICCAPS data (February 2026) is unequivocal: in 2025, exports to the United States fell by 12.3%, to 84 million euros, while European markets grew by 3.3%, reaching 1,420 million euros. Dependence on the American market — which some high-end footwear manufacturers built up over a decade — has become a real concentration risk.
The operational response is not merely commercial. It is systemic. Entering new European markets — Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Central Europe — requires the ability to respond quickly to samples, manage collections with short delivery deadlines and integrate EDI with the order platforms of local distributors. Anyone without this digital infrastructure takes longer to qualify as a supplier. The Dutch distributor will not wait for the factory to learn how to use its ordering portal — it will move to the competitor that already knows how.
Calculate the concentration of turnover by market: if a single country represents more than 30% of exports, that is a concentration risk. Identify the target distributors in the new markets and confirm the integration formats they require — EDI, B2B portal, structured CSV file. Assess whether the current system supports multiple currencies, payment terms and customs documentation without manual intervention. If the answer to any of these questions is "no" or "I don't know", European expansion will cost more than it should.
Dimension 4 — Operational efficiency: the OEE that nobody measures
In a footwear factory with 120 employees in Felgueiras, the line efficiency KPI is calculated at the end of the day by the supervisor, on a sheet of paper, based on their experience. There is nothing wrong with experience — the problem is that this data arrives late, is not comparable between lines and disappears when the supervisor goes on holiday.
The detail that lean manufacturing manuals do not mention: in footwear, the line bottleneck is rarely in the slowest operation. It is in the transition between stitching and lasting, where WIP accumulates invisibly because each section has its own pace and nobody measures the waiting time between them. Factories that measure WIP in real time identify the bottleneck before it delays dispatch. Those that do not measure it discover it when the customer calls to ask about the delay — and by then they have already lost two days of reaction time.
Real-time production capture tools, such as KORA Productivity, allow operation-by-operation recording on industrial terminals, calculating OEE per line and identifying where productive time is lost. It is not automation — it is visibility. And visibility is the first step towards any sustained efficiency improvement. Measure the current OEE of at least one line over two weeks, even manually. Identify the three operations with the greatest time variability between operators. If the average WIP between stitching and lasting exceeds one day of production, there is line imbalance — and there is room to gain capacity without hiring anyone.
Dimension 5 — Data and decision: the report that arrives late
The operations manager of a footwear factory makes planning decisions with data that is, on average, 48 to 72 hours out of date. When the production system does not talk to the ERP in real time, the planning manager works with a snapshot from the day before yesterday. In collections with delivery windows of 6 to 8 weeks, a two-day delay in information equates to a week of lost reaction time.
The integration between the shop floor and the management system is not an IT project — it is a business decision. Read more about how to build this foundation in how to build a data-driven organisation: the first step.
| Challenge | Visible symptom | Impact if not resolved in 2026 | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| SKU complexity | Excel running parallel to the ERP in the sales team | Order errors, returns, loss of margin | High |
| ESPR traceability | Batch data scattered on paper and spreadsheets | Loss of contracts with European brands | Critical |
| Market concentration | +30% of turnover in a single country | Exposure to external shocks (tariffs, exchange rates) | High |
| OEE not measured | Efficiency calculated at the end of the day by the supervisor | Unanticipated dispatch delays | Medium-High |
| Delayed data | Production reports with 48-72h lag | Planning decisions based on outdated information | Medium |
| EDI/B2B integration | Orders received by email and entered manually | Inability to qualify as a supplier in new markets | High |
Common mistakes — and what to do differently
Buying a generalist ERP and trying to configure the variant matrices. The configuration covers 70% of cases — the remaining 30% end up in Excel. Demand a demonstration with your own SKUs before signing any contract. Read how to assess the vertical fit of an ERP before signing a contract.
Deferring traceability until "after the ERP implementation". Traceability is not a module — it is a process. If it is not designed at the outset, it is always left for later. Start with the batch record at material receipt, even before you have the definitive system. The imperfect manual process is better than the non-existent process when the buyer asks for the digital product passport.
Measuring line efficiency only when there is a delay. OEE measured in crisis does not serve to prevent the next crisis. Implement continuous capture, however simple, and compare consecutive weeks. The week-on-week variation says more than the absolute value.
Ignoring the integration with customers' ordering portals. Every customer who sends orders by email is a manual entry error risk. Prioritise the three largest customers and negotiate a structured format — CSV, EDI or the KORA B2B portal — before the next season. The cost of an order error with a customer worth 500 thousand euros a year justifies the investment.
Treating the ESPR as a problem for the quality department. Material traceability for ecodesign cuts across purchasing, production, warehouse and dispatch. If only the quality manager knows what the ESPR is, the factory will not be able to respond when the buyer asks for the digital product passport — and the buyer will not wait for the factory to learn what it is.
What separates the factories that will grow from those that will lose contracts
The APICCAPS figures show that the European market is absorbing and growing. The question is not whether there is demand — it is who will be able to meet it with the speed, traceability and digital integration that European buyers already take as standard. Factories that arrive at the August buyer's visit with real-time production data, documented batch traceability and orders integrated into the system have a different conversation from the factory that arrives with an Excel updated the day before.
The MULTI ERP, designed for Portuguese industrial verticality, and tools such as KORA Productivity for the shop floor exist precisely to close this gap — not as a promise, but as operational infrastructure that already works in factories in the sector. See also how other industrial sectors face similar challenges in the challenges of textile industry 4.0: how to be competitive and in the importance of a centralising ERP for SMEs.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ESPR and why does it affect the footwear industry in 2026?
The ESPR (European Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) came into force in July 2025 and imposes material traceability, durability and repairability. For footwear, it means that European buyers will demand digital product passports before signing contracts in 2026/2027. It is a regulatory obligation, not optional.
How many SKUs can a footwear factory manage without an adequate system?
A collection with 120 models, 8 colours and 7 sizes generates 6,700+ combinations. Add widths and fittings and it exceeds 10,000 SKUs. Generalist ERPs do not model this natively, forcing teams to use Excel, which diverges from the system and causes reconciliation errors with international customers.
What was the impact of the American market on Portuguese footwear exports in 2025?
Exports to the US fell by 12.3% in 2025, reaching 84 million euros. This represents a real concentration risk for factories that built up dependence on the American market. Diversification into European markets became strategic in 2026.
How can I confirm whether my ERP supports the complexity of footwear variants?
Audit how many active SKUs exist in the ERP versus in the sales team's spreadsheets. Confirm whether creating a new reference automatically propagates to purchasing, production and invoicing. If someone enters the same data in three different places, the system does not solve the complexity natively.
What does batch traceability mean in the footwear context?
It means recording each material (leather, sole, lining) from receipt to the dispatched pair, linking batch, date and supplier. The production order must connect the material batch to the finished pair and to the customer order. Without this, you do not comply with the ESPR and you lose contracts with European brands.
Why are European markets growing while the US falls?
European markets grew by 3.3% in 2025, reaching 1,420 million euros, while the US fell by 12.3%. This reflects shifts in global demand and opportunities in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Central Europe, which require the ability to respond quickly and EDI integration with local distributors.
What is the first step to resolving data dispersion in a footwear factory?
Confirm that you have complete mapping of the variation axes (model, colour, size, width, fitting) in the system. Check batch traceability, cycle time data, order history for the last 24 months and real safety stock. Without these foundations, any improvement is cosmetic and does not solve the commercial survival problem.
Sources
- APICCAPS — Portuguese Footwear, Components and Leather Goods Manufacturers' Association (2025 export data and market analysis)
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 — European Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), in force since 29 July 2025
- Decree-Law No. 28/2019 — Legal regime for electronic invoicing and certification of invoicing software by the Tax Authority (AT) and ATCUD
- INE — Statistics Portugal (foreign trade data and Portuguese footwear industry)
- Standard ISO/IEC 27001:2022 — Information Security Management Systems (applicable to data traceability and integrity in production systems)