Tag Archive: medical webbing

  1. BRM Finds Silver Lining in the National Pandemic Emergency

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    BRM Finds Silver Lining in the National Pandemic Emergency

    Bally Ribbon Mills has employed several innovative strategies to meet customer needs despite the many challenges that the pandemic has presented to U.S. manufacturers. A recent article in Harvard Business Review, “Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation,” describes how responding to such challenges can actually drive innovation, and BRM demonstrated this principle in 2020 by transforming its sales and manufacturing processes for an environment suddenly requiring remote office work and social distancing on the plant floor.

    The new processes have achieved many benefits in efficiency and agility that have become part of the “new normal” that will outlast the pandemic. For example, BRM needed to migrate its paper-based project planning, control and feasibility (PPCF) process to an online system that could be accessed by employees working remotely. The paper process had offered limited visibility to team members not directly involved with the project, and the flow would be temporarily blocked whenever a stakeholder was traveling or on vacation and could not move the paper to the next stage of the process.

    The new online system has many benefits, including allowing the project initiator to continually monitor progress and address any delays and to reroute the flow to accommodate staffing availability changes. The online system has reduced the time to complete the process by as much as 80%!

    This enhanced efficiency enabled BRM to quickly develop a new structural polyester tie-down for temporary medical and first-responder structures during the pandemic, even though the order came shortly after BRM had ceased normal operations and the entire sales, customer service, and R&D teams had begun working from home.

    Learn more about BRM’s new processes related to COVID-19 in Manufacturing Tomorrow Magazine:

    www.manufacturingtomorrow.com/news 

    By Sarah Islam, Bally Ribbon Mills 

     

  2. BRM Reflects on Recreational, Safety and Medical Uses of Fabrics on National Textiles Day

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    BRM Reflects on Recreational, Safety and Medical Uses of Fabrics on National Textiles Day

    Engineered woven webbing, tapes, and specialty materials, used in everyday life

     

    In honor of National Textiles Day, Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM) is celebrating not only textiles and their myriad uses, but the front-line workers in various industries who are using these fabrics to save lives.

    Held on May 3, National Textiles Day recognizes all the ways textiles improve lives. Since 1923, Bally Ribbon Mills has established itself as an industry leader in the design, development, and manufacture of highly specialized engineered woven fabrics, creating

    products for aerospace, defense, medical, safety, automotive, commercial, and industrial applications. From recreational to essential uses, textiles play a role in our everyday lives.

    Recreational and commercial use

    As a pioneer of 3-D weaving technology, BRM creates tapes, webbing and other specialty fabrics from virtually any yarn – including nylon, polyester, aramid, graphite, glass, quartz, ceramic, and silicon carbide. Other specialty fabrics, like Kevlar®, Nomex®, Spectra® are used to create binding tape, chin straps, harnesses, packs, climbing webs, pet leashes, and parachute and balloon setups, which are available in light-weight binding to medium and heavy webbing.

    Additionally, with much of today’s technology literally woven into the clothes or accessories we wear every day, designers at BRM are using its E-WEBBINGS® e-textile platform for a variety of applications. These woven narrow-fabrics are conductive, enabling the electronic transmission of data, sensations (light, noise, vibrations, heat), and power that can be stored or used to actuate/transform objects. Their unique conductive fibers can be woven in conjunction with other fibers and can be used in embedded sensors in both wearable and integral technology, including the Internet of Things

    For example, a large fabric e-textile square produced by Bally Ribbon Mills can be placed into a custom application with small on-board battery and computer systems designed to sense environmental hazards, collect temperature and climate date, log distance and speed, and more. Consumer markets for clothing, outdoors equipment, and safety products also continuously turn to advanced textiles to gain a cutting-edge advantage.

    Essential medical and safety fabrics

    E-WEBBINGS® has also proven to be an essential fabric in the medical and safety fields, including fire, law enforcement, industrial, military, and commercial fall protection personal protective equipment (PPE).

    Made from Nylon, Nomex®, Kevlar®, Vectran®, PBI®, Nextel®, and other specialty fibers, BRM’s safety webbing and tapes meet the demands of applications requiring high temperature, fully engineered safety solutions. They can be used for shoulder straps, harness webbing, and chin straps, as well as helmet suspension, binding tapes, lap belts, and shock absorbing webbing.

    Responding to the global health crisis 

    In response to the current COVID-19 emergency, BRM is manufacturing urgently needed narrow woven structural tapes and elastics for use in a range of medical items. These include manufacturers of facemasks, face shields, gowns, other PPE, and medical patient soft goods, as well as patient slings, wheelchair harnesses, braces, and respiratory equipment.

    BRM’s safety webbing and tapes are ideal for applications requiring high tenacity, abrasion resistance and flame and heat resistance. They are also a good choice for controlled elongation applications as well as those requiring chemical resistance in specific environments, as they offer conductivity, dimensional stability and strength, and can help to reduce weight and size. The materials meet United States (NFPA) requirements for fire fighters’ protective clothing and equipment.

    This year, these specialty fabrics are more important than ever as our medical and safety professionals tirelessly work to assist those diagnosed with coronavirus. On National Textiles Day, we’re honored to be a part of the effort to equip our front-line works with the best fabrics available to ensure they can protect themselves and continue to save lives.

    By Sarah Islam, Bally Ribbon Mills 

  3. Bally Ribbon Mills Supplying Range of Narrow Woven Tapes and Elastics Urgently Needed During COVID-19 Emergency

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    Bally Ribbon Mills Supplying Range of Narrow Woven Tapes and Elastics Urgently Needed During COVID-19 Emergency

    Ideal for facemasks, face shields, gowns, and other medical soft goods and equipment

    Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM), an industry leader in the design, development, and manufacture of highly specialized engineered woven fabrics, announces it is manufacturing urgently needed narrow woven structural tapes and elastics for use in a range of medical items required for the current COVID-19 emergency. The tapes and elastics are used by manufacturers of facemasks, face shields, gowns, other personal protective equipment (PPE), and medical patient soft goods, as well as patient slings, wheelchair harnesses, braces, and respiratory equipment.
    BRM offers ¼- to ½-inch woven tapes and webbing in natural polyester and elastic. Latex free options are available, as well as material with 100 percent elastic stretch. Also available are ¼-inch to ¾-inch nylon grosgrain binding tapes used in medical tie applications and special designs where Velcro is utilized for closure.
    BRM manufactures medical items in a certified clean room to ensure cleanliness and quality and maintains the rigorous ISO 13485:2016 certification for the design and manufacture of medical devices. Additionally, medical textiles engineers, and prototype weavers, and braiders at BRM work on a confidential basis to protect the intellectual property of customers.

  4. 3 Ways Medical Textiles Saves Lives (Continued)

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    Biomedical textile use has exploded in recent years and has resulted in countless saved lives. In our previous post, “3 Ways Medical Textiles Can Save Lives,” we addressed the first important life saving method–prosthetic implants.

    img-medical-productsProsthetic implants work in many ways to assist the body in functioning. Examples of use we mentioned in our previous post were in hard and soft tissue, dental, and vascular applications. Critical properties of an implant are porosity and fiber size. Toxicity is also important to look at, as it can mean life or death if a procedure interacts poorly with the implant material. Whether a material is stable or degradable should be determined and used according to its purpose, such as a biodegradable material for a more temporary implant.

    The next two ways webbing saves lives are when it is used in aortic repair and as heart valve replacements.

    1. Aortic Repair

    An aortic abdominal aneurysm, or AAA, occurs when an artery wall weakens and can burst. It is a catastrophic, life-threatening condition that can be prevented by threading a woven AAA device into a position that will support the affected artery. This tubular prosthesis of biomedical textile becomes one with the repaired vessel through time and by inserting it via a catheter the procedure is less invasive than open heart surgery.

    Repairing an artery using biomedical textiles typically involves using what the medical industry terms a “narrow fabric,” which is any non-elastic woven textile that is 12 inches or less in width and has a woven selvage on each side.

    1. Heart Valve Repair

    A heart valve textile is a medical fabric supported by a polymer frame structure that is threaded into position using a catheter. The procedure is called trans aortic valve replacement or TAVR for short. To gather separated material from the diseased vessel during surgery, a tubular tapered narrow fabric is also used. It is threaded just outside the replacement valve, protecting downstream vessels from displaced debris during the procedure. Upon completing the valve replacement, the device collecting debris is compressed and withdrawn.

    As you can see, using biomedical textiles have greatly impacted medicine for the better by providing meticulously made fabrics and structures that support bodily function and life. Prosthetic implants, aortic repair and valve replacement are only a few examples of their impact on human life and wellness.

    Bally Ribbon Mills proudly produces prototypes and full-scale production lines of woven tapes, webbing, prosthetics and dental biotextiles. Our medical textile engineers, and  weavers work in confidence to protect your intellectual property and help create life-changing and life-saving biomedical textiles. You can also trust us to manufacture your devices in a certified clean room while following rigorous quality standards such as ISO 13485:2016.

    Contact us today for more information on our medical textiles.

  5. 3 Ways Medical Textiles Can Save Lives

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    These days, medical devices look more like a futuristic movie prop than reality. Made of various metals, plastics and biomedical textiles, improved devices include prosthetics, aortic repair woven tubular and fine flat woven scrims. These textiles are softer, more flexible, stronger, and more versatile than previous available options, which makes them more sustainable in crucial cardiovascular and orthopedic applications.

    bally_biomedical_woven_samplesRigid materials and methods are seeing improvements thanks to biomedical textiles. Not only is the physical outcome a benefit of these innovations, but so are the cost efficiency and healthcare outcomes. Bally Ribbon Mills developed a timely, broad product line of biomedical textiles for medical use, contributing to the field’s innovations.

    Within the product line, you can find woven tapes and webbing in either flat fabrics or straight or bifurcated tubular structures, dental, orthopedic and prosthetic biotextiles. Webbing, in particular, offers many life-saving advances in medicine. The first of three ways webbing can save lives is with prosthetic devices.

    1. Prosthetic Devices

    A prosthetic is any foreign or synthetic material or part that’s purpose is to replace a body part. One type of prosthetic devices is an implant. Permanent or temporary in nature, the implant’s material and characteristics depend on its purpose and environment in which it will be used. These small to large prosthetics can replace body parts, monitor bodily functions, deliver medication or support tissues and organs. Common examples are hip implants, which are permanent, and chemotherapy ports, which are removed after medication is no longer needed.

    Medical devices of biomedical textiles are a fairly new technique used for prosthetic implants, and require high standards. These requirements are:

    • Porosity — A measure of the density of a woven fabric
    • Fiber Size — Determines porosity and implant size
    • Toxicity – A measure of when a fiber polymer or fabrication technique needs to be free of contaminants and completely non-toxic, including the fibers
    • Bio-Friendliness – A measure of how adaptable the fiber is within the human body. For example, use of biodegradable and bio-stable elements will allow body cells to properly adhere to and subsequently grow on the device.

    Though there is a wide variety of uses for biomedical textiles in prosthetics, below are a few of the most common uses in medicine today.

    • Soft Tissue Implants — Artificial tendons and skin patches are examples of these. Chemical structure, hydrophilicity, surface roughness, flexibility, electric charge, hydrophobicity and micro heterogeneity are all important characteristics of soft tissue implants that affect tissue growth and cell attachment.
    • Hard Tissue Implants — Artificial joints and bones are examples of hard tissue implants. Crucial properties include chemical stability, biocompatibility, strength, and processability. This type of implant is used to stabilize a hard tissue and promote tissue growth around the implant itself.
    • Dental Prosthesis — A trip to the dentist for dental prosthetics can relieve pain, enhance speech, improve appearance and prevent disease. Ideally, a biocompatible, bondable material will be used to match the patient’s natural appearance.
    • Vascular Devices — Used to replace weakened or blocked cardiovascular system components, vascular implants are used for a variety of reasons. A graft or stent allows for bypass of a blockage to restore circulation. Weaving technology creates anatomically correct straight or branched structures for these procedures. Tightly woven grafts are used to prevent a hemorrhage directly following implantation. Blood compatibility, porosity, re-absorbability, easy tissue growth and defect free weaving to resist clotting are all important factors in this type of procedure.

    As you can see, biomedical textiles play a major role in saving and improving lives on a daily basis within complex and simple medical procedures and treatments. There are two more fascinating ways webbing saves lives that we’d like to share with you, and Bally Ribbon Mills is proud to design and produce these necessary textiles.

    Check back in two weeks to find out the other two ways these materials can save lives.