Hello dear co-creators,
We come back to you to give you news about our NW900 and NW980 models:
1. Difficulties encountered since the COVID crisis:
An important point that we wanted to share with you in complete transparency:
Our industrial and sustainable development policies are increasingly directing our production in Europe when the industrial fabric is suitable.
Our 2 models NW900 and NW980 use specific assembly techniques, components and know-how which are not currently available in Europe, we have no other choice than to produce them in a country with strong know-how in this area. type of models: in Vietnam, a country with which we have worked for many years and in which we have teams of Decathletes on site who monitor developments and production.
However, as you probably know, Vietnam has been facing a very strong resurgence of Covid-19 since the beginning of this summer 2021, which the country is struggling to cope with, in particular, a shortage of vaccines. Our teams of Decathletes on site are safe, but are teleworking and therefore cannot go to the factories.
Factories were also closed for several months to ensure the safety and health of their employees, which is an absolute priority.
As you will understand, all of this has significant consequences on our ability to finalize our developments and then produce on time.
We are implementing different scenarios with our local teams depending on the “normal” recovery capacity of our suppliers. But in any case, the factory closures will not allow us to offer the NW900 and NW980 shoes in our stores in the first quarter of 2022 as initially planned.
We hope that it will be ok for mid-2022 but nothing is certain yet, we are doing our best to shorten the deadlines.
2. Progress:
Long-term tests continue to test these two models over time and on all terrains and over several thousand kilometers.
These tests allowed us to reassure ourselves about the behavior over time of the NW900 and NW980 and you also helped us to improve some details such as the size and positioning of certain crampons, the shape and dimensions of the gaiter or still the forefoot lining to improve comfort
Example: More massive crampons (Photo Grip), better cushioning (Photo cushioning) but also an anti-stone gaiter much closer to the foot (Photo Gaiter)
Photo Grip:
Gaiter Photo:
Photo cushioned:
We have therefore reached the end of the validation of this product!
The next steps are:
> Validation of versions in all sizes to ensure that the size is suitable from 37 to 47 at the end of 2021
> The first industrial phases including industrialization (setting of all tools) January 2022
> Supply of raw materials and launch of production at the end of the 1st quarter of 2022.
> Quality inspections and international transport for implementation in our stores during the first half of 2022
The Nordic walking team :)
