Companies Shift Gears in Crisis

We first introduced you to teen fashion designer Ariel Swedroe in October of 2018. Her story was inspiring then, and she continues to inspire us today. Ariel is just one of many using her skills and passions to fight the virus. Not only is she using her sewing skills to produce masks, she has posted a how-to tutorial on Instagram so others can pitch in as well.

Other companies are retooling their operations to make masks and keep people employed. Patrick Tio, at Equipe Athletics in Southern California, has two styles of face mask that meet the current CDC guidance in the event of a shortage of certified face masks. He selected a 100% polyester fleece fabric, based on a study published by the Oxford University Press. The facemask has been developed with the user’s comfort in mind with contouring in the face to ensure a good fit as well as reduce leakage to the greatest extent possible. The ties are polyester spandex, which can be fully adjusted and will stretch to accommodate a wide range of sizes. Masks can be purchased via the Equipe Athletics website with volume discount pricing.

“But if masks need to go to an individual in need, we are also donating," Tio said. "For larger organizations looking for donations, we are requesting they help offset our material and labor costs. We are also doing this to help my staff stay employed during these hard times."

In the first week, his team produced 800 masks per day and were able to quickly ramp up to 1,500 per day.

Even our own Kelley Holmes is devoting time to making masks.

“Home Economics was a long time ago but the skills come back," she said. "By the way, did you know that the N95 3M mask is made from the same fabric in the virus AC filter #10? Consider changing your AC filter!”

 And masks are not the only equipment the industry is jumping in to supply. Allied Printing has created a PPE face shield that is die-cut in a single piece from clear plastic. The company will share the die lines and manufacturing instructions with any other printers who wish to manufacture and donate these face shields to their local hospitals and first responders. Interested parties can contact them at [email protected].

Sudhir Ravi, corporate and business development for people analytics company R-Squared AI, also went into action, because doctors, nurses and frontline health workers in Illinois did not have enough protective gear. He helped retool his family’s manufacturing business, TVP Graphics, to provide face shields based on open source files from LVPEI Center for Innovation and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

After four days of working nights, they were able to scale up and are now producing 25,000 to 50,000 face shields, which they are supplying to nonprofits at no charge for provision to front-line healthcare workers. Shields are personalized to the nonprofit. For more information, contact [email protected].

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On a larger scale, Gerber Technology has created a PPE Task force and Resource Team to support its global base of customers and partners as they work to increase their production or transition to manufacturing personal protective equipment (PPE).

“In a global context where COVID-19 inexorably continues to spread, the global shortage of masks and other personal protective equipment needed to keep healthcare workers safe is a concern of everyone," according to the company.

 The Gerber PPE Resource Team is available to support PPE manufacturing including:

● Implementing pre-defined patterns and markers or defining fabric/sewing requirements

● Helping with the setup of cutter parameters specific to the selected fabrics

● Providing training, software, equipment and service technicians to ramp up production

● Changing over current production lines to the production of PPE

● Connecting supply and demand for PPE via our global ecosystem of customers and partners

● Introducing existing PPE manufacturers to those converting to PPE production

In the first 48 hours, the task force received 240 requests from customers who wanted to participate. Alabama-based OnPoint Manufacturing took swift action. Kirby Best, the company’s chairman, started receiving calls in mid-March, and within a couple of days, the company had converted its production plant to 90% production of PPE.

“We can do masks, scrubs or gowns,” he said, “but we would prefer to focus on one or the other. So far, most of the requests have been for masks and we are able to produce about 3,000 per day using an antimicrobial fabric treated with SILVADUR from DuPont, a polymer-based antimicrobial that uses a patented delivery system to transport and secure silver ions to a treated article. The antimicrobial effect holds up well up through about 100 washings.” 

Best has been constantly on the phone with people in the industry either wanting product or discussing how they can help.

“The industry is willing to step up to the plate,” he said, “but the problem is there is no coordination on a national level. We’ve been in touch with three levels of government, FEMA, 15 governors and four major hospital chains. You hear one thing on the news, but it’s an entirely different matter to get a purchase order cut. We need centralized command to organize all of the efforts people are willing to make to address this crisis.”

Best is happy to have folks reach out if they need PPE or want to discuss how to get this effort better organized, at [email protected]. He cautions, though, that they are set up to take bulk orders, and received orders for 3,000, 4,500, 10,000 masks right away as word began to get out.

“It’s kind of strange,” he said. “We organized OnPoint to manufacture one-off items. Now we are transitioning to bulk. We’ll go back to on-demand when this is over.”

These are just a few examples of how the industry is responding to the need for COVID-19 PPE. If you’d like to share your story about how you are helping, just let us know. Both our printingnews.com and whattheythink.com sites feature COVID-19 resource pages we hope will help and inspire you.