News Center

In the context of the continued spread of the new crown epidemic and challenges to the global supply chain, the production of important nonwoven products, such as personal protective equipment (masks, protective clothing, hair covers, shoe covers, etc.) and various types of wiping materials, has put forward urgent requirements. The work done by the nonwovens industry in dealing with the new crown epidemic is commendable, but in the future, when the global epidemic may be more common, it is particularly important for us to analyze the challenges and opportunities brought to the industry by the epidemic and sum up the lessons learned when planning the development of the industry. To this end, the International Fiber Magazine interviewed the heads of the China Industrial Textiles Industry Association, the American Nonwovens Association and the European Nonwovens Association to provide a global perspective.


Li Lingshen, President of China Industrial Textiles Association


Dave Rousse, President, American Nonwovens Association
 

Pierre Wiertz, General Manager, European Nonwovens Association

Editor: What are the main challenges facing the industry in dealing with COVID-19 and similar pandemics in the future?

Li Lingshen: Since the outbreak of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, masks, protective clothing and disinfectant wipes have become very important anti-epidemic materials. The production and supply of these materials has always been a topic of great concern to the government, the public and the media. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Development and Reform Commission and the General Administration of Market Supervision are responsible for the production and quality supervision of these materials. The China Industrial Textiles Industry Association is a national industry organization in this field, substantial support has been provided to the work of these national ministries. In the production and supply of materials to deal with the epidemic, China's nonwovens industry faces the following challenges.
1. industry information is inadequate. China is the largest manufacturer of masks in the world, but the proportion of masks in China's nonwovens industry is very low. Before the epidemic, the daily production capacity was about 20 million. Basically, small and medium-sized enterprises are engaged in mask business, and they are scattered in different fields such as textiles, medicine and health. Government departments and industry associations do not know much about these enterprises, so they can obtain complete information about these enterprises at the beginning of the epidemic, accurate assessment of material supply capacity has become the primary problem we face.
At the beginning of the 2. outbreak, the supply chain of masks and protective clothing was not in place. The outbreak coincides with the Spring Festival, China's most important holiday, when companies across the industry chain have largely stopped production and workers are returning home for the holidays. Therefore, under the premise of doing a good job of epidemic prevention and gradually restarting the industrial chain has become the primary work of material security in the early stage of the epidemic. With the development of the epidemic, a large number of enterprises have purchased mask machines, and many clothing and home textile enterprises have begun to switch to medical protective clothing. By the end of April, the daily production of masks in China will exceed 0.5 billion and that of medical protective clothing will exceed 1.5 million. The supply of meltblown nonwovens, spunbonded nonwovens, hot air nonwovens and other raw materials has become the biggest bottleneck in the whole supply chain, and the products are in short supply, driven the price of spunbonded, meltblown and spunlaced nonwovens in China to rise sharply.
Standards and regulations 3. masks and protective clothing are not uniform. A large number of protective clothing enterprises in China use EU and US standards to produce export orders without obtaining production permits from China, and in the early days of the outbreak, China's regulators urgently permitted the products of these enterprises to enter the material supply system, effectively easing the production capacity conflict. In April, as the epidemic spread around the world, China's exports of masks and protective clothing once again faced inconsistent standards and regulations across countries, causing great trouble for both corporate production and government regulation.

Dave Rousse: The new crown outbreak has led to a huge demand for personal protective equipment, disinfectant wipes and other wipes, which requires the nonwovens industry to fully invest in the production of anti-epidemic materials.
Before 2020, more than 80% of medical surgical masks (N95 respirators, N95 masks, ASTM 1, 2, 3 masks, etc.) in the United States will be supplied by China. Even though nonwovens are produced and coated in the United States, many Grade 3 and 4 surgical gowns are cut and sewn in Asian countries.
During the new crown epidemic, many supply chains were disrupted as countries banned the export of anti-epidemic materials to meet their own needs. Long supply chains subject to local regulations, low inventories that had been working well before the epidemic without overstocking, and a single source of suppliers were exposed as the situation developed. Until the supply chain is disrupted, risk aversion is secondary.
For wet wipes, more and more people are using wet wipes for surface and skin cleaning under the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control, and the demand has soared, which continues to this day.
Addressing these structural problems in a competitive market economy may require some policy adjustments by the federal government to maintain a level playing field for private companies and to eliminate the "bidding wars" experienced by states in trying to ensure their own hospital supplies in the early stages of the new crown epidemic ".

Pierre Wiertz: Of course, the main challenge posed by the new crown outbreak is the unexpected, unprecedented demand for nonwovens products, as our industry has previously become accustomed to stable, long-term demand. Nonwovens and their related industries are now proving to be essential to the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic, with masks, personal protective equipment, medical textiles and wiping materials all belonging to nonwovens-related products. The effective supply of disposable health and medical products is key to the prevention and control of COVID-19.
Another challenge is the perceived gap in the critical role of nonwovens. Nonwovens industry-related organizations, such as our own associations, play an important role in providing information on supply chain conditions, production capacity and delivery times, which can help and support government policy development. In the early days of this crisis, we wrote to the European Commission to ask it to support the cooperation of EU Member States to ensure that all production facilities for the manufacture of relevant products are fully operational in order to safeguard public health. We will continue to work closely with the European Commission's services to provide them with the necessary information on the supply of medical supplies and personal protective equipment, as well as to address any bottlenecks in the supply chain.
But we are still dealing with the unknown and the unexpected. Before the new crown epidemic, meltblown cloth is not a strategic material for epidemic prevention, after the outbreak, it is not easy to predict its price trend and ensure stable supply, in addition to the supply of raw materials to meet, meltblown production line from installation, commissioning to normal operation also takes several months. In addition, in response to a large number of inquiries from start-ups and new investors with little or no experience in the industry, we are forced to constantly explain these realities to them.

Editor: What are the major opportunities for improving or developing new technologies to better respond to similar pandemics in the future?

Li Lingshen: The development of China's nonwovens and related industries has provided very sufficient material and technical support for the fight against the new crown epidemic. China has realized the localization of spunbond, meltblown nonwovens and special polypropylene raw materials. In 2019, the national output of polypropylene spunbond nonwovens will reach 1.989 million tons and the output of meltblown nonwovens will reach 66000 tons. After the epidemic, enterprises and research institutions will cooperate to install and debug new production lines, transform the existing SMS production lines, and increase the meltblown nonwovens for mask core materials from 200 tons to 1000 tons per day. The occurrence of the epidemic is not only a test for China's nonwovens industry, but also an opportunity for high-quality development in the future. In view of the possible epidemic situation in the future, China's nonwovens industry will strengthen the research and development of the production process, product design and core raw materials of medical protective clothing and masks, especially meltblown nonwovens with high filtration efficiency, electrostatic spinning technology, fabrics with high protection grade and washable reusable fabrics, so as to protect the safety of medical staff. According to the epidemic prevention needs of ordinary people, we will develop civilian masks with different protection levels, to achieve a balance between protective effects and costs, in the outbreak can be mass production. Formulate and improve the standards, evaluation and certification systems for masks and protective clothing for different groups of people and application scenarios, and standardize the order of production and market circulation.

Dave Rousse: In every crisis there is an opportunity. We have seen some newly developed materials appear in mask materials to solve the shortage of meltblown cloth required for N95 masks. We also saw the flexibility and adaptability of some manufacturers providing meltblown cloth for the adsorption material industry, and they quickly shifted some equipment to the lightweight meltblown required for N95 masks. We also work with other trade associations serving the textile industry to enable woven fabrics to meet the demand for grade 1 and 2 isolation clothing. Some nonwovens equipment manufacturers soon produced mask machines to meet the overnight surge in demand for more mask-making equipment. All these circumstances show that the adaptability and flexibility of the industry are very much needed to deal with the pandemic that may occur later.

Pierre Wiertz: While the industry is already removing capacity constraints to meet the exponential growth in demand, we need the EU and its member states to continue to take concerted collective action to maintain open trade and efficient supply chains within the EU and with its trading partners. The European Commission has established a strategic European stockpile of medical equipment, such as ventilators, personal protective equipment, reusable masks, vaccines, therapeutic agents and laboratory supplies. On the technical side, I hope to see new trends in effective alternatives to meltblown cloth and shorter delivery times on supply lines. With the support of the European Commission, EDANA has set up a new working group tasked with promoting the sustainable development of an independent and self-sufficient supply chain for medical masks and personal protective masks in the EU.

Editor: What are the main lessons learned when we think about the impact of the new crown epidemic on the supply chain of the nonwoven industry (supply of key products such as personal protective equipment and wipes)?

Li Lingshen: China's nonwovens industry in the new crown epidemic material security work initiative, actively cooperate with the government to do a good job of information collection, enterprises to resume production, coordinate the efficient operation of the supply chain, standardize the operation of the industry order and the standardization of important products, and achieved good results, in the work also have some experience to share with the global counterparts. First of all, in view of serious natural disasters and large-scale public health events, we should establish a complete database of production enterprises of important products and important raw materials and equipment, establish a white list of key enterprises, and reserve the production technology and production capacity of emergency materials, so as to facilitate the mobilization of industry forces into material support work in a short period of time. Second, strengthen communication and coordination with international industry organizations, give full play to the advantages of each country, and effectively allocate resources on a global scale. Third, strengthen the standardization, certification and mutual recognition of important epidemic prevention materials on a global scale, reduce non-tariff barriers to trade and facilitate the cross-border movement of these materials.

Dave Rousse: There are many lessons to be learned from this experience, some at the federal policy level, some at the corporate operational level. At the level of federal policymaking, we have exposed the risk of extending the supply chain of products to Asia that are essential to the safety of our citizens, although this is a possible result of the free market system and the reduction of the cost of key products. But the price risk premium for some products is worth it.
The "Bailey Amendment" formulated for the procurement of military uniforms stipulates that the procurement of materials and yarns for U.S. military uniforms in the United States must also be completed in the United States. We need to re-recognize that similar policies may be needed to ensure quality and effective supply of masks and medical protective clothing, and may also need to encourage investment in the upstream industry of personal protective equipment. Overall meltblown cloth production capacity in the United States can be incentivized by the Defense Production Act, while demand is stabilized by national reserves with revolving inventories.

Pierre Wiertz: As I mentioned above, self-sufficiency will be key, and we have seen Europe support and encourage local production to secure future capacity and supply. Germany is developing a new subsidy scheme in which the government will bear 30% of the cost of the meltblown cloth production line. We expect meltblown cloth production in Europe to triple from March to the end of the year, from about 500 to 1500 tonnes per month.

The article was originally published in the "International Fiber Journal" (International Fiber Journal)2020 issue 3, China Industry Co-integration translation.