The footwear manufacturing industry requires high specialization of the operations for the realization of shoe collections, which necessitates a high collaboration among relevant enterprises (e.g., shoe maker, suppliers, sub-contracted companies). This work aims to analyze challenges to ensure interoperability, digital transformation and enterprise integration for the Footwear Digital Manufacturing Networks (FDMNs) towards a collaborative and interoperable Society 5.0. The advances in digital technologies facilitate the emergence of the FDMNs and have the ability to invigorate this manufacturing sector. However, ensuring interoperability and digital transformation is rather challenging. A framework is advanced to address areas where future research and development work can bring significant value in the context of Society 5.0.