During the past 12 months, the efforts of the nonwovens industry to help stop the spread of the Coronavirus and protect front line workers have been all encompassing. From the development of new materials to product donations to rapid investment in new capacity to meet global supply shortages of personal protective equipment, makers and converters of nonwoven materials moved quickly.

At the start of the pandemic, industry associations around the globe reached out to government officials to declare nonwovens a essential business, and as efforts move forward these same associations are urging that these bodies continue to support domestic manufacture of nonwovens and PPE going forward.

Last month, INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, with a broad coalition of industry organizations and labor unions, representing a broad spectrum of manufacturers and workers who stepped up to make essential PPE and other products throughout Covid-19, sent a letter to U.S. President Joseph Biden and congressional leaders outlining recommendations on specific policy initiatives that must be adopted to re-establish a permanent PPE industry in the U.S.

The joint letter states: “The heroic efforts of the U.S. textile industry and its exemplary workforce throughout this crisis clearly demonstrate that domestic industry has the technical capabilities and existing capacity to make the U.S. self-sufficient in terms of our national PPE needs. However, the permanence of this self-sufficiency is dependent on the development of government policies designed to help domestic manufacturers survive the current economic crisis and incentivize the long-term investment needed to bring PPE production back onshore. If appropriate policies are not implemented, the valuable and substantial progress made over the past year to onshore a vibrant PPE industry will evaporate in the face of China’s global manufacturing dominance in the PPE sector.

“However, the permanence of this self-sufficiency is dependent on the development of government policies designed to help domestic manufacturers survive the current economic crisis and incentivize the long-term investment needed to bring PPE production back onshore.”

The associations are requesting that President Biden and Congress adopt the policy recommendations outlined in the letter through legislation, executive order and other appropriate means.
Here is a look at how some companies in the nonwovens supply chain stepped up efforts amidst the Coronavirus.

ATI Converting
When Covid-19 arrived on American soil, the nation was caught off-guard. It was obvious that the nation was over-reliant on foreign suppliers providing the majority of its Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The country struggled to get medical professionals, small business and everyday citizens the PPE they required. Recognizing the gaps in supply of PPE, and the U.S.’s reliance on foreign suppliers, ATI Corporation of North America (Advanced Testing Instruments) quickly pivoted and began offering mask production lines to customers across North America. During the past year, ATI has delivered and installed 18 fully functional mask production lines in the U.S. and Canada. ATI sourced American made raw materials for customers, while also offering daily U.S.-based customer service and support to the companies using its production machines for large scale mask making operations. ATI says that its machines have produced more than 20 million three-layer surgical masks across North America.

Additionally, ATI set up its own mask production line in Greer, SC, forming a subsidiary company called Carolina Facemask and PPE (CFM). To date, CFM has produced more than 2 million ASTM F2100 certified masks for first responders, businesses and everyday citizens. The best part of this is that the capability is here and not going anywhere. CFM maintains an on-hand stock of 500,000 masks with laboratory certified bacteria and particle filtration rates of greater than 99% in the event of any future shortages.

Beckmann Converting
As the Covid-19 pandemic worsened, Beckmann Converting began to feel the impact that its customers were facing. Fluctuating orders for their product lines, pivoting programs to respond to unprecedented PPE demand and disruption of new product development projects all intensified. Most had to deal with reallocation of various raw materials made both internally as well as outsourced.

One of the company’s largest customers discovered a path of opportunity to modify a laminated filtration material for heavy industry end use to qualify it as N95 facemask material. It set out to leverage critical networks they had in the medical and government industries. Beckmann Converting stepped up to run a series of trials to laminate samples of textile combinations that held the highest potential for successful performance while having relatively stable supply chain.

Joint working teams demonstrated their expertise and agility. Within a few short months, a novel laminate material was proven out for manufacturability and passed all N95 qualification testing protocols. The first significant customer for the new facemask material went to contract shortly thereafter, and additional prospects are now in discussion with the customer.
Although the crystal ball for facemask demand into the future is a bit cloudy, Beckmann Converting has positioned itself to support its customers at a higher level as the world continues to find its way forward.

Chase Machine and Engineering
The Covid-19 pandemic has put an enormous amount of pressure on PPE and nonwoven suppliers to meet the increased demand for product. During this difficult time, established companies struggled to ramp up in order to satisfy this new demand while entrepreneurs seized the opportunity and began sourcing equipment to gain entrance into the market. Fortunately, Chase was in position to help.

Chase Machine and Engineering designs and builds custom web handling equipment that manufactures machinery for both the PPE and filtration markets. Equipment such as face mask machines, ultrasonic laminators, slitters and winding equipment that are in high demand. In addition to its custom machinery, Chase also manufacturers manual ultrasonic sealing machinery such as the FS-90 and FS-180 products.

While custom machinery can take many months to design and build, the FS sealing equipment is a stock item and ready to ship to those with an immediate need. Manufactures of all types of PPE have reached and purchased this equipment from Chase in order to help satisfy the demand.

The benefit of ultrasonic technology is that if the correct materials are selected, materials can be welded together rather than sewn which leaves holes in the materials as they are joined together. When dealing with PPE and filtration products, holes left by sewing create leaks where a virus or fluid may penetrate. Ultrasonic welding fuses the materials together without creating holes or tears.

Ultrasonics also eliminates the need for consumables such as needle and thread or adhesives. Not only does it save the end user money in both materials and downtime, but also helps product designers as they specify the materials used in the construction of the product. For instance, the need to select an appropriate adhesive that not only performs in the construction of the product, but is also safe for the end user, is no longer a concern. Ultrasonic technology uses the actual chemistry of the fibers themselves to melt thereby creating a molecular bond that is superior to that of adhesive.

Dow
For healthcare professionals battling the Covid-19 pandemic, isolation gowns are among the most used and needed personal protective equipment (PPE). In response to this critical need, Dow collaborated with nine key partners across a myriad of industries to develop and donate 100,000 isolation gowns to help frontline workers in Texas, Louisiana and Mexico.

“The Dow team is proud to continue developing PPE to help our frontline workers, but this effort would not have been possible without our partner companies, each of whom readily stepped up to make this project a reality,” says Michelle Boven, global marketing director for Health & Hygiene at Dow. “It’s also a testament to how quickly companies can innovate when a diverse team from different organizations across industries come together to achieve a common objective.”

The end-product, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Level 2 gowns, required concepting, design, testing, package development and a supply chain. In this case, each collaborator brought their unique expertise to the table, all donating valuable time and resources to the project.

The gown is made with polyethylene nonwoven coated with a layer of polyethylene film made with resin donated by Dow.

• Fitesa manufactured the nonwoven material that provides tear resistance and soft touch.
• Cadillac Products Packaging Company provided extrusion coating of the film making it durable enough for AAMI Level 2 performance.
• 3M and Shurtape donated the tape to provide barrier performance on the gown sewn seams.
• Mobility technology company, Magna International, Inc., – identified through Dow’s relationship with Volkswagen – provided resources to cut and sew the gowns.
• DuPont provided isolation gown design expertise.
• Landaal Packaging Systems has donated all the boxes to ship the gowns.
• Plastixx FFS Technologies donated the bags for each gown to be packaged in for distribution.

The 100,000 AAMI Level 2 gowns were distributed equally to government agencies in Mexico and in the states of Louisiana and Texas.

“Our teams are problem solvers by nature and their passion around helping during these unprecedented times has been nothing short of inspiring,” says Frank Eupizi, director of engineering, Magna International. “It’s been an honor to witness the same passion at Dow and to collaborate with them to provide medical gowns for healthcare professionals using the skills and expertise normally applied to producing automotive seat covers. We are grateful for the opportunity to make a difference together.”

“Many companies have shown tremendous ingenuity and speed in changing over production to meet the needs for respirators, masks, face shields, hand sanitizer and other products critical to fighting this pandemic,” says Boven from Dow. “With the accelerated product development, testing and certification of these medical gowns, Dow is proud to be among these innovators and we will continue to look for ways to use our vast material science expertise to address the needs of frontline workers around the world.”

The gowns conform with ASTM and ANSI standards and are labeled in compliance with FDA guidance on non-surgical apparel.

ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil has responded rapidly and effectively to an initiative by the Nonwovens Institute (NWI), a long-standing partner since 2008, which was looking for polymers to fabricate specialty nonwoven fabrics used for personal protective equipment (PPE). NWI is supplying the spunbond and meltblown nonwoven fabrics to manufacturers of medical masks, helping essential frontline medical workers get the PPE they need to stay protected against Covid-19.

“When NWI reached out for support we had no hesitation in helping them,” said John W. M. Roberts, strategic marketing executive Polypropylene, ExxonMobil. “Having identified the location of the polymers, we mobilized our logistics network to make sure the product was delivered quickly and efficiently.”

From various inventories, ExxonMobil donated a combined total of 146,000 pounds of ExxonMobil  PP3155, Achieve  Advanced PP6926G2 and Vistamaxx 8880 performance polymers to LINC, a non-profit affiliate of NWI located in Raleigh, NC. Supply chain logistics required coordination with ExxonMobil’s branded distributor Channel Prime Alliance which handled delivery of the product. ExxonMobil also made several value chain introductions, connecting NWI with companies looking for high-quality nonwovens for PPE.

The nonwoven fabrics were produced at the NWI facilities on the North Carolina State University Centennial Campus. Production requires incredibly specialized machinery and skilled operators which, combined with high-quality ExxonMobil PP, Achieve and Vistamaxx polymers, optimizes speed of production and nonwovens performance. Spunbond nonwovens are used for the outer layers of a variety of medical masks as they are breathable and have the strength to protect the inner layer by maintaining the integrity of the mask. Meltblown nonwovens are used in the inner layer because they provide an effective barrier to liquids and particulates, while being breathable. Currently celebrating its 60th year in the polypropylene business, ExxonMobil has over 50 years’ experience with both types of nonwovens and invented the meltblowing process in the late 1960s.

Nonwoven fabrics were sent to mask manufacturing companies in North Carolina and across the U.S. NWI also purchased assembly machines so that nonwovens could be converted into masks using local campus staff and volunteers, speeding up delivery to local medical facilities.

“This entire effort clearly illustrates the value of long-term collaborations between industry and academic institutions,” says Bhaskar Venkatraman, ExxonMobil vice president, Polypropylene, Vistamaxx and Adhesion. “In this instance, when there was a critical need to produce PPE so frontline workers can do their jobs more safely, these relationships enabled us to respond quickly and effectively to help society.”

Having joined the NWI in 2008, ExxonMobil has provided ongoing support to the Institute’s development including: product development programs; the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment; mentoring of students in related North Carolina State University graduate programs; guidance on Institute programs; and, training of ExxonMobil employees to better serve the market.

Fameccanica
Fameccanica, as part of the Angelini Group and of the joint venture with P&G, has taken several actions to actively react to the Covid-19 emergency.

Beginning in January, Fameccanica started an internal call for ideas which led to FPM, a machine that manufactures surgical masks, anticipating the huge demand for these sanitary articles.
Fameccanica provided fundamental support to Fater S.p.A., the Angelini and P&G joint venture company, Italian leader for personal and home care products, to reconvert an existing line to manufacture surgical masks. The first 250,000 masks produced were donated by Fater to the Italian Civil Protection.

Fameccanica supported the design and engineering development phase through video conference sessions held with Fater. This was made possible thanks to the deep competence of Fameccanica technicians and engineers, who were able to remotely manage the start-up phases.

The Angelini Group, to which Fameccanica, Fater and other companies belong, promoted other charity activities such as the “Weschool” platform, realized in collaboration with CISCO, aiming at the free supply to schools of a virtual teaching system. Also, they freely provided their disinfectant gel Amuchina to public institutions, after increasing the production to meet demand.

Furthermore, the Angelini Foundation donated funds to the National Institute for Infective Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome, to wholly finance a project for the automated diagnosis of infective diseases, that will lead to several advantages: from early diagnosis, to the rapidity and certainty of the diagnostic process.

Curt G. Joa
Curt G. Joa, Inc. invested significant efforts to increase production capacity and supply for personal protective equipment (PPE) items because it was apparent early in the pandemic that U.S. supply for protective face coverings would not be sufficient for the growing need.

As early as April 2020, Joa joined the collaboration project Badger Shield that created an open-source design for face shields to provide PPE for the University Wisconsin Healthcare network and other medical personnel in need. Joa designed a headband for the shield that gave the wearer maximum comfort and the necessary tension to keep the shield in place, and then converted equipment in the onsite R&D laboratory to produce them quickly. With the internal capabilities, Joa produced the first batch of headbands in less than 20 hours from initial request, which helped the Badger Shield project create thousands of face shields immediately.

In addition, Joa leveraged its nearly 25-years’ experience designing and building face mask production machines to create a patent-pending mask designed for optimal production efficiency. To increase critical supply quickly, Joa produced millions of the new masks on its internal R&D assets for distribution to employees of a major global retailer.

Furthermore, leveraging its flexibility as a custom machine builder and collaborating closely with the customer, Joa was able to shorten production and delivery schedules by almost 75% and deliver facemask production machines to the market and establish stable production quickly.

The continuous challenge for companies that are considered “Critical Infrastructure,” such as Joa, is keeping employees safe as they work through this crisis. Joa follows all CDC and WHO guidelines and implemented an aggressive continuous improvement program aimed solely at protecting employees from Covid-19. By keeping employees safe, Joa continues to serve the market’s needs as the world addresses the ongoing impacts of Covid-19.

Nice-Pak
Nice-Pak has developed an antibacterial wipe product which it is donating to  hospices, NHS bodies and care homes in the U.K. to help them in the fight against Covid-19. The contribution comes after an increase in demand for hygiene products due to the coronavirus, in particular antibacterial wipes used both in and out of the home.

Donations have been made to care homes including Rhiwlas Care Home, Bod Hyfryd Care Home (both Flint), Llys Medig Care Home (Denbigh), Hafod y Green (Trefnant)  Fern Lodge (Chester) and Dean Wood Manor (Wigan).

Nice-Pak employees also delivered packs to Flintshire housing, Hope House Hospice, Nightingale House Hospice, Wigan and Leigh Hospice, Halton House Hospice,  Wrightington, Wrexham NHS Command Centre, 11 North West Ambulance Service NHS, Flintshire health and social care workers and residents at Flint tower blocks.

The company’s efforts have  been praised by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham for PPE donations to a local NHS trust.

Deborah Thatcher, HR director at Nice-Pak, says: “We received numerous requests from colleagues and external healthcare organizations for donations to the community. As a result, our teams worked incredibly hard to produce a new antibacterial wipe in just two weeks and donated thousands of packs around the region. Developing and manufacturing a new product can take months, so to complete it in 14 days is a record for the business and reflects the passion of our people to help our communities. We are really pleased to be able to offer our help during this crisis and hope they play a role in keeping people safe.”

Tracy Livingstone, director of nursing and patient services at Nightingale House in Wrexham, says: “In these unprecedented times it is humbling for the team at the hospice to have this fantastic support of our work. Knowing that the team at Nice-Pak are helping us in looking after the patients and families in our care as well as our staff members means a great deal to us.”

Rebekah Ashley, IPU manager at Wigan and Leigh Hospice,  says: “The wipes are absolutely crucial to prevent the spread of infection and are being used throughout the hospice building.”

Liz Darley, registered manager at Dean Wood Manor care home, says: “The staff team have found them very helpful to keep infection control standards at the highest standard possible.”

Susie Lunt, senior manager of integrated services, lead adults at Flintshire County Council, says: “Nice-Pak’s kind donation of PPE is being allocated in a co-ordinated approach to health and social care workers across Flintshire who continue to support our older and vulnerable residents.”

Speaking about a coordinated approach to tackling PPE shortages, Mayor Burnham says: “I’m proud of how our partners across Greater Manchester have come together to work in a co-ordinated way to make sure our frontline services have the vital PPE they need to do their jobs and I thank them for their Herculean efforts.”

Period Partner (Hospeco)
Period Partner, an effort of Hospeco, regularly donates thousands of menstrual care products to organizations that help the homeless, those living below the poverty line and other people in need. Since its inception, donations have topped more than 648,000 period products. In the face of the Covid-19 crisis, Period Partner is extending its mission by increasing these donations across a variety of national organizations with the greatest reach. The goal is simple: to get these vital products to the people who use them, now in their greatest time of need. 

In March and April 2020 alone, in response to the pandemic, donations totaled more than 105,000 products to Femme Aid Collaborative (Ohio), I Support the Girls (Indiana and Maryland) and the Homeless Period Project (South Carolina).

Across the U.S., charitable organizations that help underserved populations gain access to vital menstrual care products are scrambling to help a growing number of people. While the scarcity of toilet paper has become a constant headline in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak, what of these other just-as-essential hygiene products? Just as with toilet paper, people need menstrual care products—almost half of the population. When people who can afford it stockpile these products, the homeless and the poor are often going without.

Regarding the most recent donation, Erin Carey, assistant director of Mission Advancement for the St. Vincent de Paul Society, said that Femme Aid Collaborative is a gift to the Dayton (Ohio) St. Vincent de Paul community. “We sheltered over 1000 women in 2019, and Femme Aid helped ensure that each guest had access to appropriate feminine hygiene products,” Carey says. “We are blessed to have a partner that provides such an important necessity for those we serve.”

On the unprecedented run on paper products, Bill Hemann, Hospeco’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, said the pressure being placed on retail stores is leaving our most financially vulnerable populations at a loss to cover their basic hygiene needs. “We stand for the idea that menstrual care products are a necessity, not a luxury,” explains Hemann. “We consider it part of our mission to step up at this time and help fill this critical need.” 

Period Partner leads the conversation about universal access to menstrual care solutions in public restrooms, treating them as the necessities they are, just like soap, toilet paper, and paper towels. Hospeco, a leading maker of hygiene, safety, and cleaning products for the away-from-home market, founded and supports the initiative, believing that it is long past time for these necessary hygiene products to be treated as essential.

RadiciGroup
Nonwovens supplier RadiciGroup experienced the weight of the Coronavirus pandemic first hand. The province where it is located, Bergamo, was one of the first areas in Italy hit by the virus and at one time nearly half of its employees were on medical leave. As the area hospitals experienced extreme shortages of PPE, RadiciGroup developed a new spunbond material laminated with polyetheylene film that can be used in protective medical gowns.

The material has passed the tests according to norm UNI EN 14126:2004 that enables to use the company’s certified material for the production of protective wear (PPE) for hospital doctors. It was an extraordinary achievement since RadiciGroup, which has a strong link with its local communities, actively reacted to the emergency creating brand new production chains where they did not exist before.

The name chosen for the initiative, WeCare, expresses RadiciGroup’s will to really care for local communities and people with very concrete actions that contributed to fight the virus. After setting up the new production chains and donating 5000 gowns to the Papa Giovanni XXIII Bergamo hospital, the group has quickly turned into a key partner to medical associations, hospitals and other healthcare organizations that need raw material or ready-to-wear PPE garments.

RadiciGroup has been engaged in other solidarity initiatives: together with Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio, the group has made a donation for the purchase of all the necessary plant for piping oxygen to 200 beds for Covid-19 patients in the field hospital built by the Associazione Nazionale degli Alpini (National Association of Italian Alpine Soldiers) at the Bergamo Fairgrounds. Moreover, the group has contributed to providing a portable CT scanner for Bolognini Hospital in Seriate, Bergamo, where the machine is needed for the diagnosis of patients presenting with respiratory problems potentially due to Covid-19.

Radici Plastics Suzhou, a RadiciGroup company based in Jiangsu Province in China, has joined a fundraising drive promoted by the Italian community in Shanghai to send Bergamo Hospitals over 45,000 masks and other medical devices.

What is more, together with Maglificio Santini and Plastik, RadiciGroup has been a leading player in the supply chain for the production of “molamia” (“don’t give up” in Bergamasque dialect) masks, part of the project coordinated by the Bergamo Manufacturers’ Association, which has led to the approval of the product by the Politecnico di Milano University and then by ISS the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the Italian National Institute of Health).

RKW
RKW, Frankenthal, Germany, a global manufacturer of plastic films for areas of hygiene and agricultural films, films for the beverage industry and packaging for powdery goods, has donated approximately 5000 surgical masks to medical or nursing facilities made at three  locations in Germany. 

For Harald Biederbick, CEO of RKW SE, this was an obvious step to take: “We are part of the community and we take our local responsibility seriously,” he says. “We have seen how difficult it is for medical facilities, of all places, to obtain personal protective equipment that they need most. We had some, so we were happy to share. This also goes hand in hand with our business mission, namely to help actively improve people’s lives with our products.”

At the Frankenthal, Petersaurach and Gronau sites, around 1600 surgical protective masks were distributed to clinics, nursing homes, care services and doctors’ and rehabilitation practices each when supplies were particularly difficult to organize at the beginning of April. 

The fact that RKW even had so many masks in stock was due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in China at the beginning of the year. “We produce in Guangzhou and were therefore aware of the coming difficulties early on and stocked up on time. We wanted to be prepared to be able to equip our employees worldwide with protective masks at short notice if necessary,” says Biederbick. 

In addition to the masks, RKW is also committed to protecting people with other means from its own production. For example, RKW Wasserburg helped to provide safe care for Covid-19 patients in the intensive care unit of the Rosenheim hospital with a foil donation. The bus drivers in Grafschaft Bentheim are protected from all too close contact with passengers by a barrier made of foil from the RKW site in Nordhorn. And in a joint venture with Renault Trucks, the employees of the French production site in Castelletta (Greater Lyon) produce disposable protective aprons made from donated RKW film in their leisure time, which are made available to the clinics in the region. 

Web Industries
By the fall of 2020, needs in the U.S. for personal protection equipment (PPE) had reached critical status. Web Industries responded to the national manufacturing crisis by repurposing composite material cutting lines at three plants to produce disposable protective isolation gowns by the millions in a matter of months.

The company reconfigured cutting equipment at its Atlanta, GA, Denton, TX and Middlesex, VT, facilities that had been used to format materials for aerospace applications. The conversion involved recalibrating the lines to accommodate the nonwoven surgical gown material and was completed in a matter of days.

According to market development and strategy manager, Ralph Tricomi, staffing to meet the sudden influx of huge orders for nonwoven protective isolation gowns was among Web Industries’ biggest challenges.

“Our human resources department at each plant undertook an intensive recruiting effort to attract and hire skilled operations personnel,” Tricomi says. “Overall, there was a unified, interdisciplinary effort among three plants to produce gowns necessary to help protect lives and get America back to work.”