Six months in, ISAIC attracting national attention, business
Original Story here: Crain’s Detroit Business, November 9, 2020
Click here for a pdf version of the story.
Finalizing contract with Department of Defense to make isolation gowns for national stockpile
Named as manufacturing site for pilot testing Siemens AG robotics technology
Production underway or starting soon for number of local, national apparel companies
Just six months after opening, the Detroit-based Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center is attracting national attention and business.
The nonprofit sewn goods training institute is finalizing a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to produce personal protection equipment and has been named as the pilot site for testing robotic technology to automate production of isolation gowns, as part of a project team led by Siemens AG's technology group in Berkley, Calif.
At the same time, it's secured contracts with garment companies from both coasts and is preparing to launch an on-demand, custom T-shirt line that will provide another level of training for employees, along with revenue to support its mission.
"Our job as an institute is to bring advanced technologies, to train on them (and) to scale those competitive technologies broadly in the U.S. (and in) Detroit as a hub," said ISAIC CEO Jen Guarino.
The new interest and business "affirms that our mission is well-timed and there is a valid need for an institute that can help to pilot advanced manufacturing In the apparel industry."
PPE production
ISAIC launched production in a 12,000-square-foot space in Carhartt's Detroit building in late March, sewing isolation gowns rather than the garments it had planned initially.
It subcontracted with a dozen others, including the Empowerment Plan, to help to fill orders for a combined 99,000 isolation gowns and contracts totaling $600,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Detroit Medical Center. It's still making isolation gowns for the state, Detroit Medical Center and Beaumont Health, Guarino said.
Separately, the Quicken Loans Community Fund purchased a disposable mask production line and installed it at ISAIC.
The Defense Logistics Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense heard about those efforts and approached ISAIC about making isolation gowns, she said, as part of the larger Operation Warp Speed effort to ensure a national stockpile of PPE and COVID-19 vaccines. ISAIC is working on a contract with the DOD for that production.
As a national institute for the trades, ISAIC would engage other garment makers from around the country, Guarino said.
"What's attractive to (DOD) is we represent the industry at large, not just our own company. They view it as keeping the supply chain healthy."
Robotic tech pilot
Last month, ISAIC was named as the pilot site to test the use of robotic technology Siemens has been developing in the production of isolation gowns. Siemens is leading the one-year pilot which also includes Sewbo Inc., Henderson Sewing Machine Co. and Bluewater Defense Inc. in Puerto Rico. Pennsylvania-based Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing, which receives funding from DOD, is helping to fund the pilot.
"We were approached by one of the partners in the Siemens project about being a usage case facility. They really wanted a place they could trial this technology that was in a manufacturing environment," Guarino said.
Siemens and its partners had been working on the development of automated garment-making technology for the past year and a half when the need for PPE arose with COVID-19, said Juan Aparicio, head of advanced manufacturing automation for Siemens Technology.
For the most part, the production of textiles and garments is still done by hand, making it very labor intensive, he said.
"Anything you are wearing has been most likely done by humans and done overseas," which creates a lot of inefficiencies, Aparicio said.
"If you are sewing jeans all day.. there's a lot of turnover in the industry...it's a task that is asking for automation."
The goal of the pilot at ISAIC is to prove out the concept of using the technology to make isolation gowns but also how it can be used on the factory floor, Aparicio said.
"What are the operator skills needed? Where does the robot stop and the human start? Those are very important inputs for our system."
Often times, technological innovations don't engage end users soon enough, Guarino said.
"Siemens understands the importance in that."
Successfully engaging the end user means successful innovation can be commercialized more broadly and more quickly, as well, she said.
Preliminary work at ISAIC's site has started with process review and preparing to move a robotics cell into its Detroit factory, she said.
The use of robotics/advanced manufacturing to make isolation gowns and, ultimately, garments is important because it offers the ability to scale, which translates to having a more solid and reliable supply chain here in the U.S., one that is not reliant on the challenges of importing, Guarino said.
"It makes it much more competitive, increases the speed, and the jobs it creates are higher level because it's programming robotics."
Several of ISAIC's employees will be involved in the pilot, which will position the nonprofit training institute as an expert and lead trainer on it, Guarino said.
Garment production
Ramping up PPE production as quickly as it had to was great preparation for ISAIC and its employees, Guarino said. They learned to sew a single product — isolation gowns over and over again — and got very proficient and efficient at it. At the same time, they learned flexibility through cross-training.
"Their competencies increased and those skills are transferable to other products," she said.
ISAIC is doing cut and sew work for TD Industrial Covers for automotive use and helping to train its staff to do the work, Guarino said.
And it's moving into garment production with work underway or launching soon for a number of clients and products, including: undisclosed work for Carhartt, sport team jerseys for Detroit-Owned Apparel, T-shirts made from 100-percent recycled material for Chicago-based Everywhere and an outerwear sweatshirt cape for Rhode Island-based Cleverhood.
"Training people for apparel construction is something we feel strongly about," said Cleverhood Owner Susan Mocarski, in an email. In its nine years, the company has been challenged to find quality sewing contractors, she said.
"ISAIC is a ray of light in a dwindling U.S. industry," Mocarski said. "Couldn't be nicer that it's coming from Detroit, a scrappy city that is no stranger to retooling industry focus." ISAIC's new business is the culmination of three years' of conversations that started long before ISAIC ever launched, Guarino said. "We started looking for brands aligned with responsible manufacturing," with living wages for employees and sustainable processes and materials, she said. "As a result of our work (during) the pandemic, it really got the word out there about our work as a larger institute."
Blank T-shirt line
Beyond the hand-sewn and automated PPE production and new contracts with garment companies, ISAIC is also launching a blank T-shirt line to teach employees how to handle a single-cell operation in which they do everything from start to finish, while also producing revenue to support the nonprofit training institute's mission. The shirts will be made from sustainable materials and packaging and be made on-demand for business-to-business and business-to-consumer customers, to reduce waste.
"This is market-driven," Guarino said. "People want to be able to logo (T-shirts). We want to offer them a sustainable T they can order on demand."
The plan is to begin the custom on-demand T-shirt runs in mid-November for undisclosed customers, Guarino said, along with ISAIC-branded items that will be sold through a storefront it's developing on its website.
ISAIC is operating on a budget of more than $5 million for fiscal 2021 which began Oct. 1, Guarino said. It's up to 30 employees — two thirds of them women and nearly half of them people of color. One, who was formerly homeless, came to the organization from the Empowerment Plan, and another is a returning citizen.
The nonprofit training institute plans to add nine more employees this year, some as apprentices as it expands its training, she said. It's working with the Empowerment Plan, Detroit Employment Solutions Corp. and other workforce development agencies to recruit employees.
"Part of the reason we chose Detroit as a our home is because we believe that by bringing innovation here it will attract the industry here, just like Silicon Valley," Guarino said.
"We believe Detroit has an opportunity to be seen as a hub for advanced manufacturing in garment apparel."