Customer Issues
- March 2020: For over 6 months, hospital isolation gowns were in limited supply for medical professionals to manage COVID-19 cases
- Traditional materials and suppliers utilized to manufacture gowns were not available.
- Health systems requested help from non-traditional automotive manufacturers to utilize available raw materials for an immediate solution
- An airbag material was identified with fluid resistance that was suitable to manufacture a washable, re-usable isolation gown for healthcare professionals treating COVID-19 patients – a durable, washable, readable tag was required for the product
The AWT Solution
- We provided rapid design and testing to meet product performance and durability requirements.
- Part launch process compressed to under 2 weeks
- We supplemented customers testing capacity
- Multiple designs developed while scaling up initial product
- Design 2 offered improvement for sewability without performance degradation
- Design 3 incorporated a color to differentiate size/styles with visual cue
- Design 4 incorporated a no-sew adhesive backed design for use in disposable gowns
- Scaled up production volumes to multiple cut and sew operations to support fast ramp up of supply
