The custom foot orthotics market, long characterized by traditional, labor-intensive manufacturing methods like plaster casting and manual milling, represented a seemingly unlikely target for disruption by a technology titan. However, Hewlett Packard (HP), leveraging its pioneering expertise in 3D printing and digital workflow solutions, made a decisive and significant foray into this specialized healthcare sector with the launch of the Arize Orthotic Solution. This strategic move, announced in 2021, was not merely about creating a new product; it was an attempt to introduce an entirely new paradigm—an end-to-end digital ecosystem—that promised to revolutionize everything from the patient scanning process to product consistency and clinical productivity.
The Rationale for Disruption: Inefficiency and Inconsistency
The traditional orthotics workflow was ripe for digital disruption. Historically, creating custom orthotics involved a multi-step, variable process: a podiatrist would create a plaster cast or use a foam box impression of the patient’s foot. This physical mold would then be shipped to a laboratory, where technicians would use heat-forming plastics and subtractive milling techniques to produce the final device. This process was inherently slow, often requiring weeks for turnaround, and highly variable. The quality and final fit were heavily reliant on the skill of both the clinician taking the cast and the technician manufacturing the orthotic, leading to frequent inconsistency, material waste, and the need for costly patient follow-up appointments for adjustments.
HP recognized that its core competencies—specifically, the industrial-grade accuracy and speed of its Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printing technology, combined with its cloud-based software expertise—were perfectly suited to address these pain points. The existing variability and inefficiency were viewed not as insurmountable industry challenges, but as a direct result of outdated analog processes that could be optimized by digitalization.
The Arize Solution: An End-to-End Digital Ecosystem
Arize is not simply a 3D-printed insole; it is a cohesive, three-part digital solution designed to transform the clinical workflow from start to finish.
1. High-Precision Digital Capture: The first step replaces the messy, imprecise process of casting with high-resolution 3D scanning. HP’s system uses a specialized 3D laser foot scanner (or potentially integrated mobile-device scanners) to capture the exact anatomical contours of the patient’s foot. This digital data capture is fast, highly accurate (often within 0.5mm), and is completed in a non-intrusive clinical setting in under five minutes. This step dramatically reduces the margin for error that plagued traditional impression techniques, ensuring the foundation of the orthotic is based on precise biomechanical data.
2. Cloud-Based Software and Clinical Interface: The captured 3D scan is uploaded to Arize’s cloud-based platform. This is the intelligence layer of the solution. The software streamlines clinic operations by enabling staff to manage patient intake, view prescription statuses, and, crucially, allows the podiatrist to define the orthotic’s prescription digitally. The system automatically detects key anatomical landmarks, which the provider can review and modify. Clinicians can select from a range of familiar orthotic styles (functional, sports, low-profile) and apply industry-standard modifications—such as heel seats, arch adjustments, or medial flanges—with immediate digital visualization. This ease of use and intuitive interface lowers the barrier to entry for digital adoption and standardizes the prescription process.
3. Advanced Additive Manufacturing (HP Multi Jet Fusion): The final, and perhaps most impactful, component is the manufacturing process. The digital prescription is sent to a central facility utilizing HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology. MJF printing allows for complexities in design and material usage that are impossible with subtractive milling. The result is an orthotic made from materials like PA-12 Nylon that are up to 60% stronger, lighter, and thinner than traditional milled polypropylene. Critically, MJF allows for advanced features like lattice structures and variable segment stiffness, enabling designers to precisely control flexibility and cushioning in different areas of the orthotic shell. This level of customization improves patient comfort, fit into modern shoe types (including low-profile dress shoes), and durability.
Impact and Competitive Advantage
HP’s Arize solution offered several immediate competitive advantages that challenged the status quo in the orthotics industry:
Enhanced Efficiency and Turnaround: The Arize digital workflow drastically cuts the time from scan to shipment, moving the process from an average of two to three weeks down to around ten days or less. Furthermore, the repeatable, digital nature of the product eliminates the need for a dedicated “wet room” for casting and significantly reduces the labor-intensive nature of ordering and production.
Consistency and Repeatability: By relying on digital files and automated 3D printing, Arize ensures that a patient receiving a reorder gets an orthotic that is dimensionally identical to the original. This contrasts sharply with manual methods, where even two devices made from the same cast could exhibit slight variations.
Superior Product Design: The design freedom afforded by MJF technology allows Arize to create devices that are thin, lightweight, durable, and highly customized. This addresses a major patient pain point: bulky orthotics that do not fit into everyday footwear. The ability to control internal geometry and density at a voxel level (a 3D pixel) allows for unprecedented biomechanical specificity.
Sustainability: Additive manufacturing inherently generates less waste than subtractive milling, which can waste 90% or more of the initial material block. HP’s MJF technology, with its reusable powder system, aligns the Arize solution with a growing industry and consumer demand for more sustainable medical device manufacturing.
Challenges and the Future Outlook
While Arize presents a compelling technological leap, HP’s foray faced—and continues to face—the classic challenges of disrupting an established, specialized medical field.
The first challenge is clinical adoption. Podiatrists and orthotists, accustomed to decades of traditional casting and lab relationships, must be convinced to invest in new scanning hardware and fundamentally change their clinical workflow. HP has mitigated this by working closely with an advisory council of leading clinicians and designing a user-friendly interface that aligns with existing prescriptive logic.
The second challenge is cost and reimbursement. Though the digital efficiency improves labor cost for the manufacturer, the initial cost of the advanced 3D printing and scanning technology must translate into value that is either supported by insurance reimbursement codes or justified by superior patient outcomes and reduced adjustment needs.
Ultimately, HP’s Arize Orthotic Solution represents a significant strategic deployment of a key industrial technology—3D printing—to solve a specific healthcare problem. It underscores the broader trend of technology companies moving beyond consumer electronics to become key players in digital health and personalized medicine. By digitizing an entire vertical, HP has not only created a high-quality product but has also set a new standard for accuracy, efficiency, and customization that is likely to accelerate the orthotics industry’s inevitable shift toward additive manufacturing.