A day with… Fly Flot, well-being starts in Calvisano

Its headquarters are tinged blue, the colour of the sky, to celebrate the lightness that is the Fly Flot brand – crowned by the wings of two seagulls – communicating its power. In Calvisano, in the province of Brescia, the company founded by the Migliorati family in the Sixties – a leader in Italy in the production of comfortable footwear – has its headquarters, a 7,000 square metre centre where about fifty employees work (management, sales and administration department), as well as Research and Development and warehouse employees. About ten kilometres away, the Isorella site houses another four warehouses covering a total of 21,000 square metres: here there is a staff of 150 people, divided into the various departments dedicated to direct injection, finishing and logistics (packaging and shipping). Only 5 per cent of production is relocated to two factories in Moldova and Albania, where the most complex uppers (30 per cent) or those elaborate models whose process takes more than 20 minutes are sent for production.

The Migliorati brothers Tarcisio and Franco, sales manager and product manager respectively, welcome us into the showroom, an exhibition space divided by glass, into two mirrored rooms (where copy collections are housed) that allow us to work in tandem with Italian and foreign customers. This is where our day dedicated to discovering the Fly Flot product and the innovations it brings to the world of footwear begins.

Migliorati brothers Tarcisio, sales manager (left) and Franco, production manager (right)

Fly Flot uses 100% renewable energy from photovoltaic systems

Story of a great family

In 1962 the Migliorati brothers (12 in all) with their respective brothers-in-law started a business dedicated to the production of footwear and sandals with rubber soles, a type of product that experienced a growth phase until the Seventies, when the trend shifted towards more performing polyurethane solutions. “The polyurethane sole,” explains Franco Migliorati, “does not limit design possibilities, it is lightweight and has excellent long-term mechanical properties. The company rode the success of polyurethane to the point of introducing the technology of direct injection on the upper, a process that saves a few steps, uses less glue, but above all allows the anatomy of the foot and the fit to be followed. With the entry of the second generation of children and grandchildren into the company in the 1980s (the initial idea of building a family tree was unthinkable, ed.) a new awareness was born:’ We realised that we could give the product recognition through branding and advertising,’ Franco continues, ‘by emphasising the key characteristics identified in the four points of total well-being: anti-shock, anatomical, self-modelling and anti-slip.

We chose a brand that was able to suggest lightness, adopting the name Fly Flot from a product that had been successful in the past; furthermore, the flight of seagulls evokes freedom, we liked this analogy. As the company grew, it set a rule on the values it intended to respect: continuous research to improve quality, adoption of a polyurethane sole according to an environmentally friendly formula, choice of durable and healthy raw materials for the upper. Then we worked on style, on customer satisfaction, trying to minimise delays and disruptions, and on communication. In short, we strive for excellence in all the activities of the company. Recently, responding to market sensitivities and with a focus that is already familiar to us, we have further focused on environmental sustainability, e.g. by reducing waste, replacing the painting process with TPU film, and covering 30,000 square metres of our warehouses with solar panels, for an energy production capacity of 2.7 megawatts, which has made us totally independent.

“All this has been possible thanks to a real team effort,” Tarcisio Migliorati emphasises. “Each partner has a precise task that he or she puts at the service of the company organisation with intelligence, skill and cooperation. The third generation is already active in key roles, but we also have professionals working with us who, although they do not belong to the family, hold managerial positions due to their inclination and the skills and experience they have acquired over the years’.

The showroom where sales managers Tarcisio and Michele Migliorati receive Italian and foreign customers to arrange orders. An elegant and hospitable environment that expresses the Fly Flot philosophy

From production to market, here are the winning cards of Fly Flot footwear

The showroom where we stopped before starting our tour displays the Fly Flot sample collection for the 2024 summer season. “In conjunction with Expo Riva Schuh in Riva del Garda,” explains Tarcisio, “we intend to meet all our Italian and foreign clients to support them in the selection of the sample collection. The organisation set up in the company allows us to maintain constant production flows throughout the year, a strategic choice that in turn allows us to avoid waste and delays and to gain a good competitive advantage. We offer a service for distributors and retailers to access a portal where they can upload products of interest to the carriage at a retail price in line with the market. The intent of the portal is in fact to provide a plus to the customer, certainly not to bypass the retailer, whom we instead seek to protect from unfair competition. In this way, among other things, we have totally eliminated the problem of stocking”. Naturally, trade fairs remain a fundamental appointment to meet potential customers and to compete with the offer of the representatives of the sector: ‘Organised on dates that are useful for collecting orders, Expo Riva Schuh in particular captures the attention of large international entities with which to start a new collaboration. We are in fact looking to grow above all towards foreign countries, strong in the Made in Italy factor that adds value to our article. We currently distribute about 45% of Fly Flot’s production across borders: Europe, USA and Canada, North Africa (Morocco) and South Africa, Israel, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia are our main countries of reference”. Made in Italy, but also a focus on sustainability, towards which the company has always shown sensitivity and interest. ‘We were one of the first companies in the sector in the 1980s to introduce water-based polyether polyurethane for direct injection,’ Tarcisio continues. ‘We do not use adhesives. We use recycled materials such as PET or regenerated wool. We only buy certified raw materials. Sustainability also translates into a durable product, a feature that goes against the rules of a consumerist economy. With the extension of the photovoltaic system to all halls, we are able to produce 100 per cent clean and renewable energy. “The implementation and updating of machinery combined with their digitisation on the basis of Industry 4.0 models,” continues Franco, “have allowed us to optimise processing cycles, increasing productivity and alleviating night shifts, which will be eliminated altogether thanks also to the possibility of exploiting the energy produced at zero cost in self-consumption. “With the reconditioning of the machines,” adds Tarcisio, “we have created a centralised digital system integrating a work progress control function that allows us to manage a production of 12 to 13 thousand pairs of shoes per day and to be more flexible, reliable and punctual in scheduling and monitoring deliveries, to the benefit of customer service.

‘Training is another of our strengths,’ concludes Franco, ‘both managerial and employee training through external and internal courses. This is an essential strategy, also in view of the fact that the experiential fabric on footwear has almost disappeared from our territory, which was once an important production hub’.

The retouching station. In the event of a small defect, the product is not discarded, but recovered and meticulously restored

One of the 4 warehouses in Isorella where finishing and packaging operations take place (above and left)

The sample department. Those who sew, those who assemble the shoe: all the operations and steps involved in preparing the samples are documented. Approximately 10,000 pairs of samples are produced per season (1,400 in the showroom) for a production volume of around 1,500,000 pairs

the 4 point of well-being

Research and Development: Objectives and Perspectives

“Our core business is focused on comfortable leisure footwear as well as indoor footwear,” say the Migliorati brothers. Synonymous with quality and value, Fly Flot is known as the iconic brand of the traditional clog (in white, perforated leather), but for some time now we have been increasing our product lines, winking at trendy proposals that have captured the interest of a younger target audience attentive to comfort and value for money. We try to offer a product that is adaptive to the person, that reduces the stress of walking and posture, by researching soft, light and enveloping materials: memory foam insoles, stretch uppers that adapt to the foot without constricting it and that through colours and refractions are able to conceal its defects.

We follow the fabric laminations directly in the company, studying elastic and resistant solutions at the same time, which provide comfort even for those who are required to work on their feet all day”. “In some cases,” Franco points out, “we commission suppliers to produce original fibres with a pH value that makes the fit healthier. Sometimes it takes us up to six months to a year to refine certain technical and stylistic aspects. We formulate the polyurethane (polyol) in-house according to proportions that generate a product with structured comfort, soft but load-bearing, for a level of safety that is difficult to improve. Material tests show increases in grip and wear resistance of our soles of up to six times greater than a traditional shoe”. “It’s a question of know-how,” Tarcisio continues, “We have not only learnt how to process materials, but also how to recondition moulding machines according to our requirements for quality and excellence. We produce the moulds in-house starting from the drawing made with 3D CAD technology based on the anatomy of the foot. Once the render is created and approved, the file is sent digitally to the mould maker. In the R&D department, we create the upper and insole prototypes with a two-dimensional CAD system remotely connected to an automatic cutting technology that replaces the manual work of the pattern maker.

The 3D CAD workstation for product rendering operated by Paolo Migliorati

The FC4 320 Teseo automatic material cutting machine with a worktable equipped with a double cutting area to optimise work. The monitor projects the size of the shoe onto the leather or fabric, so that the operator can start cutting operations depending on the information received remotely from the 2D CAD software

the 4 point of well-being

Future challenges

“We are already prepared for summer 2024 with a very updated sample collection, a sign that expresses our desire for growth,” Tarcisio announces. There are many innovations, especially in the outdoor area, with an interesting assortment of moccasin models.”Of course we are not losing focus on our core business, but this can expand the moment we realise that we already have all the tools and requirements to create an even more technically structured product. The main challenge is to enhance the cost and appeal of our footwear in the eyes of our customers’. “It is complicated in a saturated market such as the footwear and clothing market,” Franco continues, “to emerge and grow because of the value of technical content, a concept that is difficult to understand and explain, especially in an economy based on the price centrality. The most demanding task that awaits us concerns the marketing sphere,’ reiterates Tarcisio. ‘Our greatest challenge is to reach the consumer, making him aware of the work that has been done over the years and that still lies behind our product, so that he can recognise that the promises contained in the brand are indeed fulfilled. The other challenge is to grow and compete in foreign markets. We have recorded an increase in turnover of 60% from 2019 and 35% in 2022 alone,’ Tarcisio concludes. Our production capacity can reach 20 to 30 thousand pairs of shoes per day: a long-term goal, however, because we do not want to risk losing control of quality at all production stages’.

The Showroom

The packaged product in the Isorella factory

The logistics warehouse where the product sold and destined for delivery is stored. Each group of boxes is subdivided by customer, identifiable by label. Distribution is organised by region to avoid unfair commercial practices

Attention to quality is also expressed through meticulous product control

the 4 point of well-being