Companies

FAIST Voices: meet Atlanta and JPM

Jan 13, 2026 Portugal

Atlanta is a family-owned business specialising in the production of footwear soles. Its main partner, JPM, focuses on providing technology solutions. Together under the FAIST consortium, they are exploring how to replace labour-intensive processes in the footwear sector with technology

The FAIST (Agile, Intelligent, Sustainable and Technological Factory) project is a consortium of more than 40 Portuguese partners, comprising footwear and leather goods manufacturers, technology developers and research institutions.

The project aims to modernise the national footwear industry by driving technological innovation and reinforcing international competitiveness, spanning from June 2022 to the same month in 2026. Over the four years, around 50 million euros have been committed to the project.

Atlanta

The FAIST partner under the spotlight this week is Atlanta, a family-owned firm specialising in the production of footwear soles. Founded in 1995, Atlanta has evolved from a small operation with a handful of machines and staff to a manufacturer offering a wide range of products.

According to Joana Meireles, Director of Innovation at Atlanta, “innovation has always been a concern”. The commitment to continuous innovation is part of the company’s DNA, and Atlanta has been actively involved in both internal and external research and development efforts, including partnerships with universities and technology institutes.

With an investment of over 550 thousand euros, Atlanta is collaborating with technological partners to develop innovative equipment that will enable the company to replace labour-intensive processes with faster, more efficient, and less manual alternatives. Meireles shared that their goal is ambitious, “but the gains are potentially vast”.

JPM

One of Atlanta’s main partners is JPM. The technology firm brings three decades of industrial automation, with vertically integrated engineering and a track record across many industries, including food and beverage, fast-moving consumer goods and automotive.

According to Guilherme Cardoso, Director of the Logistics and Robotics Business Unit, “historically, JPM has never operated in the footwear sector”, but he shared that the industry’s challenges are similar to those of other sectors, which allows JPM to contribute.

Within the FAIST, the firm is developing solutions for footwear in three areas. The first is computer vision inspection to replace manual visual checks. The second is industrial and collaborative robotic cells to automate handling and assembly. The third and last solution is augmented guided vehicles for intralogistics, pointing towards highly automated warehouse operations.

FAIST Outcomes

Atlanta is developing two new equipment in partnership with JPM: an automatic inspection station and a robotic trimming station for soles. The first one is quality control equipment with preprogrammed inspection for EVA (Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate) soles, capable of identifying and classifying soles by size, foot and model, and determining which are non-quality soles. The system uses computer vision and 3D image analysis for this purpose.

The other new equipment is designed to remove burrs during the sole trimming process. The automatic solution addresses one of the most time-consuming processes in sole production and faces a significant technical challenge: the diversity of sole models, sizes, shapes and materials.

More information about FAIST available on the project’s website: HERE.

Visit Atlanta’s website here and JPM’s website here.

Image Credits: FAIST