J and J Industries Inc., Dalton, Ga., has been recognized as a leader in pollution
prevention by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.J and J achieved Model Level status in
the Pollution Prevention Partners (P3) industry recognition program the highest attainable level.P3
is a three-level certification program that recognizes and rewards continuous pollution-prevention
performance and environmental improvement.Environmental action not reaction is a fundamental
component in our current and long-term planning, said Jim Bethel, president and COO, J and J
Industries.J and J Industries implemented a formal pollution program in 1992. Since that time, the
company has reduced solid waste generation by more than 80 percent. As well, the company has
achieved considerable reductions in energy usage, waste water generation and air emissions.
December 2001

 
Medical textiles save lives, promote healing, provide protection “It sure makes me want to come
to work every day.” At a time when the U.S. textile and apparel industry is threatened by the
availability of inexpensive imported products and U.S. producers are moving certain operations
offshore, promising and rewarding opportunities exist in the various specialized areas of medical
textiles.

Kerlix¨ A.M.D. antimicrobial wound dressing was developed by Avecia and Kendall”It is a very
good field to get into,” said Thomas R. Molz, executive vice president, Prodesco Corp., Perkasie,
Pa. “There are quite a few jobs available in the medical sector.”Kimberly Barkman, senior engineer,
product development, Guidant Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., concurred. “There are many ways to make
medical products better using various textile techniques,” she said. New products are providing
improved protection and healing properties and reducing risks to patients. “Our new endovascular
AAA system has helped so many people and saved so many lives,” said Barkman, referring to Guidant’s
ANCURE¨ System for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). “It sure makes me want to come to work every
day.”The range of applications includes very specialized and sometimes surprising uses in devices
that end up inside the body, including vascular grafts, stents, adhesion barriers, meshes, cardiac
support devices and parts of artificial organs. More conventional end-uses include surgical gowns
and drapes, dressings and bandages. Textiles are found, as well, in support devices such as
compression stockings, braces and casts.Research and development of new products in this field
often involves a multidisciplinary approach. Input from researchers in mechanical engineering,
microbiology, bioengineering and molecular biology, as well as textile sciences, is necessary to
address the various requirements of a particular product. Implantable TextilesDevices that are
implanted inside the body must be made of nontoxic blood-compatible and biocompatible materials
that are porous enough to allow tissue to grow on and enclose them. Sutures, bone-setting
materials, meshes, synthetic skin or other materials must often be bioabsorbable. Whether the
materials may be biodegradable or not is dictated by the intended application. Biodegradable fibers
used in implants include collagen, alginate, polylactide, polyglicolide, polyamine and some
polyurethanes. Non-biodegradable fibers include polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polyester,
polypropylene, carbon and others.

Guidant’s woven polyester ANCURE System for AAA.Prodesco, a research and development firm
specializing in engineered fabric and cloth structures for the medical, industrial and aerospace
industries, has been a player in the medical sector since the 1960s. The company has focused
increasingly on this sector over the last five years, developing and engineering medical fabrics
and innovative surgical implants that require minimally invasive surgery for implantation. Such
implants include vascular grafts, ligaments, heart valve components, hernia mesh, adhesion barriers
and other devices. Prodesco works with a range of companies – from startups to large, established
companies.Tom Molz talked to Textile Industries about working in the medical sector: “The challenge
is to educate medical device manufacturers to the possibilities and potential successes of textiles
for implantation. Textiles are biostable and have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) for several decades.”Prodesco is now getting into combining metal and polymers to form
composite products,” Molz said. These composites are assembled in a clean-room environment by
mechanical means, thus removing the possibility of human error. The result is a more reproducible
and cost-effective product. Guidant and W.L. GoreandAssociates Medical Products Division,
Flagstaff, Ariz., both have developed vascular grafts that require minimally invasive surgery. The
procedures entail shorter recovery times and far less risk to the patient than the major surgery
required for traditional implantation. Guidant’s ANCURE System for AAA received FDA approval in
1999. Gore’s Excluder endoprostheses for the treatment of AAA and thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA)
are approved for use in Europe and are currently classified as investigational devices in the
United States.The procedures entail insertion of a catheter through a small incision in the groin
area or the leg into an artery to deliver the implant to the site of the aneurysm. The ANCURE
System’s woven polyester graft is attached to the aortic wall by small positioning hooks made from
Elgiloy®, a cobalt/chromium/nickel alloy developed by American GageandMachine Co., Elgin, Ill.
Gore’s devices, extruded from ultra-thin expanded PTFE (ePTFE), have an outer self-expanding
support structure of nitinol, a nickel/titanium alloy.

Ethicon’s polypropylene mesh Prolene Hernia SystemThe Prolene Hernia System from Ethicon
Inc., Somerville, N.J., a subsidiary of JohnsonandJohnson, is used for the repair of inguinal
hernias. It combines three repair techniques in one system. The knitted polypropylene mesh device
consists of an underlay patch that is positioned on the inside of the abdominal wall, another patch
on the outside, and a connector that joins the patches and plugs the rupture in the
wall.InterVascular Inc., Clearwater, Fla., manufactures knitted and woven Dacron® polyester
vascular and cardiovascular grafts. Some have velour or collagen-coated external surfaces to
facilitate tissue growth. Many of the knitted products are produced on warp-knitting machines using
a reverse locknit stitch. Some woven devices have a leno structure, which reduces fraying and holds
sutures better than other woven structures. InterVascular recently developed InterGard Silver, a
graft whose surface coating of silver provides lasting antimicrobial protection. It has been
approved for use in Europe and is awaiting FDA approval in the United States. Antimicrobial use in
implantation applications is expected to be particularly effective because the sites are
inaccessible after surgery is completed, making it difficult to impossible to use antibiotics
effectively. George Du, senior principal engineer, said the graft is the first of its kind to be
developed.Antimicrobial properties are added to certain of W.L. Gore’s hernia meshes as well.
Silver carbonate and chlorhexidine diacetate are used to control contamination during implantation
of the devices.

Surgical hosiery from Sigvaris provides compression support to the leg.All Wrapped
UpDressings and bandages must protect wounds from infection as well as from further injury. Among
new products in this category is Kerlix® A.M.D, an antimicrobial wound dressing developed by United
Kingdom-based Avecia and Tyco Healthcare’s Kendall Division, Mansfield, Mass. The 100-percent
cotton dressing contains Cosmocil CQ polyhexamethylene biguandine (PHMB).In the future, “living”
bandages may be available to fight infection or deliver medicines or drugs. A research team led by
Alex Fowler, associate professor of mechanical engineering, University of Massachusetts (UMass),
Dartmouth, is working to develop biologically active fabrics that have potential medical and
apparel applications. The interdisciplinary team includes researchers from UMass Dartmouth and
Harvard Medical School in the fields of mechanical engineering, textile sciences, microbiology,
bioengineering and molecular biology. The goal is to incorporate viable microenvironments
containing genetically engineered bacteria or mammalian cells into hollow fiber-based fabrics and
poly-laminate fabrics in order to provide sustained bio-active properties to the fabrics.Support
SystemsSupport devices help to hold blood vessels or bones in place during healing and help restore
normal function by providing pressure and/or a rigid framework around the affected area. Surgical
support hosiery provides compression support to the leg in cases of thrombosis, varicosity,
lymphoedema and similar conditions. Pressure is greatest at the ankle and decreases up the leg,
reducing the diameter and supporting the walls of the veins, and counteracting the pressure of the
blood on the walls and increasing blood flow. Sigvaris, Switzerland, manufactures a range of
knitted nylon/elastane stockings and pantyhose that provide from light to extra-strong
compression.The Militex Division of New York City-based Gehring Textiles has developed several new
fabrics in its line of D3 spacer fabrics that are suitable for sports-medicine applications. (See
“Quality Fabric Of The Month,”
TI, April 2001). The fabric structure allows greater control over such properties as
elasticity, according to Gehring. The fabrics are warp-knitted on Karl Mayer machinery.Protective
CoverSurgical apparel and accessories, breathable membranes, and barrier products such as surgical
drapes must be fluid-proof to protect against possible contamination by fluid-borne viruses and
bacteria. Apparel must be comfortable and provide freedom of movement. Typically, the fabrics are
knitted, woven or nonwoven cotton, polyester, polypropylene, polyethylene, viscose or glass fiber.
Barrier protection may be provided by means of coating, lamination or encapsulation. Products may
be reusable or disposable. It is estimated that the annual U.S. surgical pack and gown market is $1
billion. According to the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry (INDA), Cary, N.C., nonwoven
disposable medical/surgical products sales generated $462 million in 1999.

Standard Textile’s ComPel surgical gowns are made from microdenier polyester fabric.
Cost-effective, eco-friendly waste management of disposable medical products is a concern in the
nonwovens sector. OREX Technologies International (OTI), an operating unit of Isolyser Co. Inc.,
Norcross, Ga., has developed OREX®, a dissolution technology that reduces such waste, and
EnviroGuard, a hot-water-soluble polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), hydroentangled spunlaced nonwoven used in
such products as Allegiance Healthcare’s Resolve surgical gowns and drapes. EnviroGuard fabric
biodegrades into carbon dioxide and waste. It may be dissolved in water heated to 205°F in an OREX
processor and released into a wastewater treatment system. Reusable products comprise approximately
50 percent of the total product in this category, up from 10 to 20 percent in the late 1980s to
early 1990s. The increase is due primarily to technological advances for reusable products, said
Richard Stewart, vice president, product development, Cincinnati-based Standard Textile, a
manufacturer of reusable surgical, incontinence-care and other health-care-related products. “The
advances have made reusables more viable from a clinical perspective,” he said. “As well, they cost
much less per use than disposables, as laundering costs are less than costs of acquiring comparable
disposables.”The woven solution-dyed microdenier polyester fabric used in the company’s ComPel
surgical gowns is specifically designed and engineered for use in the surgical environment. The
fineness of the filament, rather than an applied coating, gives the fabric its fluid resistance,
which is enhanced by fluorocarbons.Fabric woven from microdenier yarn requires different weaving
machinery than more conventional fabrics. ComPel fabrics are woven by Precision Fabrics Group,
Greensboro, N.C., on water-jet looms.Staying DryStandard Textile’s ComPly and Integrity reusable
incontinence products are twice as durable as similar products using traditional constructions,
according to Stewart.ComPly fabric’s tricomponent knitted loop construction combines polyester, to
wick liquids away from the body, and cotton, to provide an absorbent padding. A vinyl or
polyurethane barrier on the under side protects bedding.Integrity fabric is a stitch-bonded
polyester/rayon nonwoven. The stitching forms the top face, while the nonwoven web absorbs liquids.

December 2001

Spinning In Control
Murata keeps competitors on their toes with its spinning, winding and texturing
technology. In the intensively competitive worldwide market for textile machinery,
manufacturers are constantly looking for an edge – either a real difference or a perceived one – to
differentiate product offerings from those of competitors. The 7th OTEMAS, Osaka, Japan, provided
just the forum for some of the world’s pre-eminent machinery manufacturers to showcase their latest
products on the continent where the bulk of the world textile machinery is sold.It was in this
heady environment that Textile Industries caught up with Japan-based Murata Machinery Ltd.’s
Junichi Murata and Larry Kenyon. In a refreshingly frank interview, these Murata executives
discussed their products, the history of product development and future directions for the company.

Murata’s No. 21C Process Coner has a straight yarn path from the center of the photograph
above shows (1) Pac 21 process cartridge winding system; (2) indicator; (3) waxing device; (4) yarn
clearer; (5) splicer; (6) process cartridge tension manager; and (7) Bal-Con balloon
controller.Murata has made headlines over the past few years with the development of its high-tech
vortex spinning system, but it was a more basic product that had Kenyon gleaming in Osaka – the No.
21C Process Coner, a new Muratec automatic winder. The winder features such improvements as a newly
developed tension/pickup/monitoring and winding control system, and a more stable traverse
mechanism. Winding technology has been in development for more than 20 years at Murata, resulting
in the first completely new winder for the company since 1979. Murata, according to Kenyon, was the
company that first developed the splicer that reduces knots and facilitates linking of the winder
to ring-spinning frames. By getting good splices and efficient winders, he said, smaller bobbins
can be used as well.”That’s [smaller bobbins and linking] the real key of this process. By making
smaller bobbins, the spinning frame can run faster and use less power. It’s like a really small,
efficient car that can run pretty fast and uses less gas than a big fast car, you know. So that’s
the theory behind that, and it probably made ring spinning survive for these last 20 years.”A lot
of people can modernize and buy new ring spinning now,” he continued. “If they had to run really
big bobbins – and the operators had to carry them to the winder and put them on by hand – I don’t
think there would have been any payback to ring spinning. So that’s where Murata started, you know,
roughly 20 years ago.”Murata, according to Kenyon, was a pioneer in linking. “When we designed our
winder link, we made a winder where the wound bobbin came into the back – and the empty one came
out to the front and circulated around. Everybody else brought their bobbins down the front, put
them in and brought them back, so they have these cumbersome methods to handle bobbins. “We’ve had
this patented direct-link system, and I say over the last years, our winder was a really great
winder,” Kenyon said. Murata’s manufacturing was automated, which enabled the company to produce
its winder at a low cost. “We could compete on a cost basis where everybody else had to go to a new
design to compete on a cost basis,” he said.Competitors were forced into revamping designs because,
during the profitable 1980s, a number of companies did not invest in new manufacturing processes,
Kenyon said. Murata, however, did. “One of the nicest things about [Junichi Murata] is he owns this
company, and he puts all his money back into the company. So through all these years, when our
competitors were owned by people who knew they were going to sell their companies – so they took
all the money and sold – he modernized our company. We’ve been staying highly modernized in
manufacturing. We were not forced to change our winder like the other people were.But as winding
features became more widespread – such as the ability to remove a length of yarn with a slub –
Murata began considering a new design for its offering. “More and more, we did see the need to
redesign our winder and come out with a more electronically controlled winder.” Murata’s new
product, first shown at OTEMAS, features a far greater degree of electronic control. “It allows us
to put more features in without dramatically changing the design of the winder,” Kenyon said. “You
just change the software – rewrite some software portions as you change features in the future. Now
we have clearers that take out long, thin places, and we have clearers that detect hairiness. It
takes a long time to detect hairiness, so you only want to unwind it for a hairiness fault. You
don’t want to unwind 80 meters for slub when a half-meter will do. You want to unwind exactly the
amount of yarn that you need to, so that’s what made us go to a more electronic winder.” Texturing
In texturing, Murata has also been selling machines for more than 20 years, primarily to Asian
customers. “I think we listened to the Asian market, and we dominate the Asian market in texturing
machines, and for spinning winders,” Kenyon said. The company, however, has not always been as
attuned as it would like to the Western market. “The Asian market was big, and they wanted simple
machines and they all wanted the same machine, so it’s pretty good for us because, remember, our
concept is to go very quickly into automated manufacturing, not to have an army full of people
running around making things by hand. We jumped very quickly into automated manufacturing, and that
concept worked well in Asia, because there’s very little difference in Asian machines from company
to company or country to country. We are very big in the texturing market and the spinning winder
market in Asia. We haven’t been in America. We do have a nice installation of texturing machines in
America, but they are specialty machines. No one has bought the commodity texturing machine in
America for a number of years. The people that have them have a lot of machines not running.
They’re going to get their machines that are idle running before they buy some more.”

Murata’s Bal-Con balloon controller maintains even winding tension from start to finish,
enabling more stable, high-speed winding for high-quality packages.MarketsOf all the markets Murata
serves, China is definitely the hottest right now, Kenyon said. “In fact,” he said, “if you take
China and then you take the South Asian countries around China, almost all the machines are going
either to China, or they are going on the border of China. The yarn’s going to China. Some
companies maybe don’t quite have the courage to install in China yet. They want to wait and see a
little longer, but most of the machines are being sold to Chinese people, although not always in
China. Remember, a lot of Chinese people are outside of China, but they have the contacts to sell
yarn to China.”Added Junichi Murata: “Chinese competition is not fair because it is not a
democratic country. They don’t have any labor unions, and their welfare and insurance are not very
good. For all intents and purposes, they can produce textiles so cheap, and they export to all of
the world. They are talking double deal – okay, it’s both ways, we can export to many countries,
but we also have to import. But I don’t think it’s true because when we export our machines to
China, there are many expensive duties and also some discrimination from government. But in the
United States and Japan, it’s free… the government doesn’t touch anything. Then we can compete on
the same ground.”SpinningDespite advances in winding and texturing, it is spinning that has earned
Murata its reputation as an innovator. In the late 1970s, the company succeeded in developing and
commercializing the Murata Jet Spinner (MJS), the world’s first air-jet spinning frame, Kenyon
said. The MJS feeds sliver directly to the package, integrating the roving, spinning and winding
processes; and reducing labor, energy and maintenance costs.

Murata’s No. 21C Process Coner“We right now have an AO2HR, and that is our MJS series,”
Kenyon said. “We’ve sold about 2,500 of these machines, most of them in the States. This machine
will run 100-percent polyester and 100-percent acrylic. It really is a poly/cotton machine. That’s
the sweet spot on the tennis racket. It goes at bottom-weight twills and some knits, but it really
is a poly/cotton knit machine, where you want no pilling.”After the MJS, Murata turned its
attention to its acclaimed vortex line. The Murata Vortex Spinner (MVS), according to Kenyon, is
the world’s first spinning frame to achieve knotless yarn with 100-percent carded cotton at speeds
up to 400 meters per minute (m/min). Murata currently has about 200 machines installed and hopes to
increase that considerably, Kenyon said. “I think, with the time in the market, we would like to
have been at 1,000. But the market has been changing over the last few years. We started installing
these machines and perfecting them. As we got them perfected, the market became unperfected.” When
the MVS was first introduced, there was considerable interest from U.S. companies, but Murata had
difficulty making the machines fast enough to meet demand, and lost a window of opportunity. “When
you first come out with a machine, it’s expensive to make. We sold 100 machines roughly to two
people, and I frankly would imagine [Murata] lost money on those machines. Everything’s made by
hand, and we were changing our hardware know-how. When you change your hardware know-how, you
redesign. Then you go to those first customers and you say, “you know, I’m sorry, but this part is
not the way it should be,

The Murata Vortex Spinner produces knotless yarn from 100-percent carded cotton.it should be
this.” So you give them this and, frankly speaking, I imagine you lose a lot of money. We have to
go through a period of that and then, once we get the machine design stable, we go into automated
manufacturing, and that’s when you can get aggressive on the price and still make money. If you
look at a car, every part is designed the cheapest possible way. Even on a Lincoln Continental, the
parts are made economically. No one can hand-make car parts anymore. So I think we’re at the stage
now where we have pretty well frozen the design, and the people in the factory can start making the
parts more automatically. We will be more aggressive, but the market is kind of slow right now. But
a good number of people in the market want this machine.”Kenyon continued: “Mr. Murata has always
given us the technology and tools to dominate markets, and once he decides to go into a market,
you’ll notice he doesn’t make a me-too machine, does he”

December 2001