NCTO member PPE stories

 

Beverly Knits Inc.

“Our team has stepped up to the challenge of fighting Covid-19 and flattening the curve. We have organized a team of 25+ companies with over 4,000 American textile and apparel workers, to manufacture personal protective mask for HHS. Through NCTO and SEAMS [The Association & Voice of the U.S. Sewn Products Industry] we continue to engage with additional companies to help fight this pandemic and flatten the curve.”

Ron Sytz

CEO, Beverly Knits 

 

Burlington Industries LLC

 

“Burlington is proud to be a part of an industry with such compassion and call to action as we have seen over the last couple of weeks in the fight against COVID-19. With 40 years of experience in medical fabrics, Burlington is glad to offer its reusable woven products and technical expertise to those within and outside our industry who are stepping up to help produce lifesaving PPE. Our employees are committed to the cause and working tirelessly in North Carolina to increase production, reallocate resources and support the evolving needs as much as possible.

 

Reusable fabrics are critical in reducing the scarcity of PPE and increasing availability on the front lines, offering responsible solutions with advanced protection, comfort and durability where it counts the most. Throughout our Elevate portfolio of brands we are also offering support through the use of A&E technical threads and utilizing our network of contacts and expertise across Cone Denim and Safety Components to make connections, offer guidance and facilitate meaningful conversations to support our communities and healthcare heroes.”

Allen Smith

President

Burlington, Safety Components & A&E – Americas

 

Cotswold Industries Inc.

 

“Cotswold and Central Textiles have pivoted to making PPE substrates for single use non-woven fabrics for and also for reusable PPE. We have ramped our reusable fabric production and hope to produce 100-150K/week very shortly.”

James McKinnon

CEO, Cotswold

 

Gildan Activewear Inc.

 

“We are pleased to join forces with various business partners in the U.S. to reopen some of Gildan’s global manufacturing facilities under a strict biosecurity protocol to produce face masks and isolation gowns in support of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also proud to have donated a number of N95 protective face masks to local hospitals or health and human services organizations in the U.S. to support front line healthcare providers who continue to deliver exceptional care to patients and their families during this crisis.”

Chuck Ward

President, Gildan Yarns

 

Glen Raven Inc.

 

“The U.S. textile industry has emerged as a critical part of the solution in protecting our frontline workers from COVID-19. Through our collaborative efforts across the industry and with our employees, customers, suppliers and the medical community, the industry has retooled many operations and is supplying important PPE like masks, face shields, swabs, wipes, gowns and many other products. Glen Raven, through our business units, is actively working with our partners across many industries and has aligned our resources to focus on PPE inputs where we are in the best position to offer solutions. These include inputs for gowns, face shields, mask covers, and temporary structures. As part of our response, Glen Raven has organized a fabrication group with several of our customers who are producing face shields and gowns. This group is collaborating with hospital systems across the country to design and scale production of these important products.”

Leib Oehmig

CEO, Glen Raven, and chairman, NCTO

 

Greenwood Mills

 

“Venturing into a completely new territory in less than a week's time was certainly a calculated risk, but one that we feel will pay off in the long run not just for our company, but for our larger community. We have made the switch from denim production to masks and gowns. The first full week of production will result in about 30,000 masks. At full capacity, the company will produce 500,000 masks and 300,000 gowns per week, with flexibility depending on the demand of the products. It’s a testament to our workforce and ingenuity that we were able to make this transition happen so quickly.” 

Jay Self

President & COO, Greenwood Mills

 

Hamrick Mills

 

“We at Hamrick Mills have dedicated a significant portion of our manufacturing capacity to the production of scrubs, gowns, masks and related PPE. We are considered and designated as an essential business concern and are intent on doing our share to assist those in need­ patients, front line first responders, and the general public, during this national crisis.”

Jim Hopkins

Director of sales, Hamrick Mills

 

Hanesbrands Inc.

 

“We are proud to be working with the apparel consortium and the National Council of Textile Organizations to rapidly mobilize to meet such an important and critical national need for face masks during this pandemic. Our employees and those of our consortium partners have been working around the clock to transition production from basic apparel to face mask production. This has required amazing cooperation and close coordination among the government, raw material suppliers, logistics providers and our supply chain employees. Together we are achieving a monumental task, which has resulted in the manufacture and delivery of millions of masks already with hundreds of millions more to come soon. Apparel industry leaders, particularly the consortium members, have successfully turned on a dime to meet the greater good of society.”

Michael E. Faircloth

Group president, global operations, American casualwear and e-commerce, Hanesbrands

 

Lenzing Fibers Inc.

 

“Like many companies, Lenzing was working to understand exactly what was needed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and we already had fibers in a variety of PPE applications. Thanks to the information provided by NCTO and several other industry organizations we were able to better clarify market needs and determine and provide appropriate products to fit the markets requirement.”

David Adkins

Commercial manager-Americas Textiles, Lenzing

 

Milliken & Company

 

“Many of Milliken’s U.S. customers in the flame-resistant, workwear and industrial space have pivoted their operations to manufacture PPE. When we saw a need to shift to medical grade textiles, our team quickly stepped up. As of today, we have scaled production of these new products so that together with our customers we can help protect medical workers.”

Chad McAllister

President, Textile Division and EVP, Milliken & Company

 

MMI Textiles Inc.

 

“For our part, MMI has been focusing on raw materials for all four gown levels, both immediate inventory and future production orders, N95 and personal protection masks, face shields and any other PPE raw material. We successfully helped secure immediate raw material for Crye Precision, and they gave a shout out to us on a press conference with the mayor of NYC. We have secured finished masks to donate to local hospitals that we imported from overseas, and also bought face shields locally to donate.  MMI is stocking a variety of widths of elastic for use in a variety of PPE applications – our plan is to create a robust stock option so that customers can ultimately pull product for immediate delivery.”

Amy Bircher

President and founder, MMI Textiles

 

Parkdale Inc.

 

“Parkdale has been an American company since 1916 and as such we feel a sense of duty and an obligation to answer our nation's call for personal protective equipment. We are proud to work with our industry colleagues as we work together to retool, re-equip and redirect our plants and supply chains so that every citizen in the United States gets a personal protection mask.”

Anderson Warlick

Chairman & CEO, Parkdale

 

Picanol of America

 

“The nature of Picanol of America, Inc., business is to support the U.S. textile industry, especially our weaving customers. Spare parts, electronic repair and technical services are what we offer day in and day out. Throughout this ordeal, we have not skipped a beat, though the environment is clearly challenging. Our customers produce critical fabrics to be transformed in health care personnel uniform, mattress casing and sheets for the patients, and probably many other PPE. As long as our weaving customers will produce, we will stand by them. This has created a tremendous amount of stress on our associates but their ‘forward looking’ attitude has been an inspiration. It is all about surviving this together.”

Cyril Guérin

President, Picanol of America

 

Schneider Mills

 

“Schneider Mills has been very active in the past few weeks in responding to many customer needs for fabric during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We have responded to hurried orders of fabric for the outdoor shelters you see outside medical facilities across America. Demand in lightweight rip-stop fabrics being used for medical gowns and light weight tents has increased as well. We are continuing to supply to the medical tape industry for 3M. We are responding to a new customer for barrier fabrics in the medical end uses. We are pleased to be doing all we can to support our country in this war with COVID-19. Our employees are putting forth great efforts in these changes as they occur rapidly.”

Curt Parker

Vice president of operations, Schneider Mills

 

Shuford Yarns LLC

 

“Shuford makes yarn for several medical applications such as diabetic socks, gloves, cuffs for surgical gowns, towels going to the military through the federal prison industry. Shuford has been given a number of opportunities to participate in making yarns for PPE, surgical gowns etc. We are working with a car manufacture who is making PPE for several hospitals in their local area. We also internally are using some of our people who are taking fabric from a few of customers and making PPE to give to people in our community.  With all the negatives in our country, our people have found ways to have a positive in our community.” 

Marvin Smith

President & CEO, Shuford Yarns

 

Standard Textile

 

“Our healthcare customers are on the front line of treating patients and saving lives, and we’re relentlessly working to ensure our customers and our communities have continuous access to essential supplies needed to safeguard the health of clinicians, patients and their families. Heiman is fiercely committed to manufacturing as much reusable PPE and other healthcare products as possible – as quickly as possible – to alleviate the stress placed upon the healthcare industry and support the fight against COVID-19. My concern is we are missing urgent collaboration opportunities with federal or state governments to allow us to serve healthcare workers who are at the frontline of this crisis.”

Gary Heiman

President & CEO, Standard Textile

 

The Brickle Group

 

“The Brickle group will be starting production on a general everyday mask produced utilizing our filtration felt from our nonwoven division Bouckaert Industrial Textiles. We have developed a supply chain of New England textile manufacturers to be able to produce these masks. The masks we are producing domestically are machine washable meant for everyday public use, not medical use. We are also involved in importing hospital grade PPE for the New England region.”

Max Brickle

President, Brickle

 

The LYCRA Company

 

“The LYCRA Company, the only spandex producer in the U.S., is proud to produce and supply LYCRA® fiber, nylon and other quality fibers to our value chain customers during these unprecedented times. Now more than ever, the medical community and other frontline workers are in critical need of well-fitting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that helps keep them safe. We are encouraged by the quick action of many of our customers who have shifted production to produce masks and other protective devices. And with the inclusion of LYCRA® fiber, we hope to help our customers create a better wearer experience, so frontline workers can focus on what matters most – the health and wellness of our communities.”

Julien Born

President, Apparel, The LYCRA Company

 

TSG Finishing LLC

 

"We have just completed production trials on multiple non-medical woven upholstery fabrics which are now eligible for Level 1 and Level 2 (PPE) for gowns. We are getting ready to run full production on these. The collaborative efforts of NCTO, IFAI and INDA have been astounding. I am sure none of us feel we can move fast enough given this environment, but feel the entire textile industry has been very expeditious with response.”

Brian Rosenstein

CEO, TSG Finishing

 

Unifi Inc.

 

“We have more than 100 customers producing masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment needed by our first responders, medical personnel and military in the fight against COVID-19. At Unifi, we’re proud to play a part in the fight by providing the fiber they need.”

Tom Caudle

President & COO, Unifi

 

Wearbest Weavers LLC

 

“In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shortage of necessary medical supplies, the mill has been successful in creating and pivoting their production to PPE textiles. I am very proud of our team effort to turn around our production so quickly. We are fortunate to have a U.S. mill that provides us the capability to produce PPE product. We’ve accomplished a lot in just a few weeks and plan to continue innovating through this unprecedented time. Our hope is to help meet the needs of thousands of frontline healthcare workers.” 

Greg Thomases

Vice president, Wearbest parent company Swavelle