Ministry of the Interior and Safety Visits Kolon Sports Site That Led Olympic Archery 5-Time Champion
'World's First Archery Shoe' Development Site
Kolon held an 'Innovation Case Study Training for Mid-Level Officials of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety' on the 27th at the Kolon Industries FnC Division headquarters in Samseong-dong, Seoul. Park Se-jong, the part leader of the shoe development team at Kolon Sports, who participated in the world's first production of archery shoes for the 2024 Paris Olympic archery team, is giving a lecture. Photo by Kolon
On the 27th, mid-level officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety visited the Kolon FnC building in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, to see the development site of the 'world's first archery shoes' that led to the Olympic archery five-gold medal victory.
According to Kolon on the 29th, this training was arranged after the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, while searching for innovative cases embedded in South Korea's gold medals across all archery events at the Paris Olympics, came across Kolon Sports' 'world's first archery shoes' and proposed the visit to Kolon first.
The session began with a video greeting from Lee Woo-seok (Kolon Industries Xtenboys), a gold medalist at the Paris Olympics, and for about two hours, the process and vivid stories of the innovation cases connected to the gold medals were presented.
Lee Woo-seok conducted a pre-prepared Q&A via video due to his participation in the national team selection competition. He introduced the story behind the development of the archery shoes, inspired by the idea of Kolon Honorary Chairman Lee Woong-yeol, along with the players' involvement in the development process and real-life cases that led to improved performance in competitions.
Following this, Seol Seong-heon, Executive Director of Kolon Co., Ltd., explained the background that enabled the world's first development of archery shoes, highlighting Kolon Group's unique organizational culture of breaking down barriers between departments and collaborating, known as 'CFC (Cross Functional Communication),' as well as Kolon Group's sports philosophy and current status of sincerely supporting less popular sports over a long period.
The final lecture was delivered by Park Se-jong, team leader of the footwear development part at Kolon Sports and the person responsible for the practical development of the archery shoes, under the title 'Leadership and Innovation Mindset Learned Through Sports.'
Park said, "Unlike other sports, archery is a static sport, so the need for specialization was not felt, but through this development, many lessons were learned." He vividly shared stories about completing archery shoes that enhance concentration during competitions by applying three elements?▲stability, ▲traction, and ▲comfort?through close field tests with national team and company-affiliated players. He explained, "The completion of the product was possible thanks to harmonious collaboration among experts from various fields such as planning, production, design, R&D, and the athlete team."
Since 2015, Kolon has been developing and sponsoring the national archery team's uniforms and equipment through the Head and Kolon Sports brands, and at this year's Paris Olympics, it contributed to improving athletes' performance by developing the world's first archery shoes.
Jung Young-jun, Director of Planning and Coordination at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, who planned this training, said, "This training was prepared as a vivid on-site education with a new approach for mid-level officials of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, for whom three-dimensional problem-solving skills and innovative mindset development are important." He added, "I hope this will serve as a good opportunity to strengthen proactive capabilities needed in new environments in national administration through a good private-sector collaboration case that creates products never seen before in the world."
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