My Turn: Michael McKeldon Woody: R.I. textile firms rose to the PPE challenge

In Chester Davis Jr.’s comments regarding pharmaceutical supply chains (“Supply chain is key in COVID response,” Commentary, July 20), he neglects to mention the Achilles’ heel of the supply chain that landed our state and our country in such a mess — the lack of a domestic manufacturing base for personal protection equipment. This led to the severe shortage that put our health-care workers and first responders in serious danger as the pandemic spread.

Rhode Island’s textile companies, all members of the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network (RITIN), immediately responded to this challenge, pivoting to create products and processes that were entirely new, while keeping our customers and employees safe. Below are some specific examples, in alphabetical order by company:

Products from ACW in Woonsocket are being used in the production of powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs). The textile webbing and hardware attachments that ACW produces are being used in thousands of PAPRs all over the world.

The Brickle Group created and added PPE supplies to their catalog of products available through their website.

Brookwood Technologies became the fabric source on several of the new gown designs made by Merrow Manufacturing in Fall River for Rhode Island’s hospitals.

The Cooley Group created material suitable for surgical gowns, and it supplies that material to Contollo Manufacturing, which reopened and started making gowns in a Franklin, Massachusetts, textile plant that had been shuttered since 2016.

Darlington Fabrics is supplying their high-performance sports fabric to companies that are making non-medical face masks.

Graphene Composites USA is developing a graphene silver nanoparticle virucidal ink that can absorb, trap and kill coronavirus. Testing is currently taking place at Brown University and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in England.

Laura Burkett Designs makes vibrantly colored designer face coverings that they sell to the general public and provide free to first responders.

Propel LLC developed a comfortable, washable cloth face mask using Rhode Island-manufactured textiles, elastic and nose stays. The masks are now being manufactured at five operations around the country, and more than 1 million have been shipped. Propel is also developing a new 3D knit cloth face mask for the U.S. Navy.

Response Technologies initiated a multimillion-dollar investment in processing equipment and systems for the design, manufacture and distribution of “Made in USA” medical PPE.

Trans-Tex LLC is producing a U.S.-made polyester knit tubular face covering, made from U.S. yarn and U.S. fabric that can be custom printed.

Keep in mind that none of these Rhode Island companies focused on PPE production before the pandemic.

So, what happens after COVID-19 passes? How do we ensure that our domestic capability to produce PPE and PPE-related products remains strong?

Recently, RITIN joined a host of other organizations, including the American Iron and Steel Institute, the National Council of Textile Organizations, and the Warrior Protection and Readiness Coalition in supporting the Joint Statement on Policy Objectives for Reshoring and Safeguarding Domestic PPE Manufacturing. The statement calls for new federal policies such as strong domestic procurement rules for federal PPE purchases, a dedicated effort to shore up our PPE Strategic National Stockpile, federal incentives for private-sector purchases of domestically produced PPE, and funding assistance for companies to reconstitute domestic PPE supply chains.

Our Rhode Island textile companies answered the call when challenged to help solve the national PPE shortage. Manufacturing companies in other states did the same. Now it is time for the federal government, state governments and commercial buyers of PPE to ensure that this effort will not be wasted. As Mr. Davis noted, the supply chain is key in responses to emergencies like COVID-19. But for that supply chain to work most effectively, a robust domestic production capability for PPE will remain essential.

Michael McKeldon Woody is the founding chair of the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network and CEO of Trans-Tex LLC in Cranston.