Arizona MEP Helps FABRIC Scale Production
Founded in 2016 by Sherri Barry and Angela Johnson, the Fashion and Business Resource Innovation Center (FABRIC) is a business incubator based in Tempe, Arizona, focused on sustainably growing the state’s fashion industry. After building successful fashion businesses of their own, Barry and Johnson recognized how difficult it was for early-stage brands to find manufacturing and business support without leaving Arizona.
With support from the City of Tempe, the Arizona Apparel Foundation, and other partners, FABRIC has helped more than 450 fashion brands launch over the past three years. “We’ve become known as the place that can design, develop, and manufacture just about any kind of apparel,” said Barry.
Responding to a Community Crisis
In early March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began and shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) became apparent, FABRIC started receiving requests for medical gowns. Driven by a commitment to support the local community, Barry and Johnson focused on what they knew best: designing and producing sewn garments.
“We believed we could make a reusable medical gown that could help mitigate the shortage because it could be washed and reused,” said Barry. “This is something that could really help, and we wanted to do it.”
FABRIC assembled a response team, launched a war-room board to coordinate what, when, where, and how production would occur, and began sourcing medical-grade reusable materials and trim. Drawing on experience with medical device development, the team consulted directly with hospitals and hired an FDA consultant to design safe, effective, FDA-approved gowns with specifications tailored to each healthcare system.
Barry and Johnson also joined an Arizona COVID-19 emergency task force that included the Arizona Commerce Authority, Arizona Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Arizona MEP), the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, and the Arizona Department of Health Services. Within days, FABRIC was receiving hundreds of gown requests from hospitals across the state.
From Concept to Scaled Production
With an FDA-approved reusable gown design and rapidly increasing demand, FABRIC turned to Arizona MEP to help scale production. At the outset, FABRIC was producing one gown every 20 minutes. In mid-April, Arizona MEP and FABRIC set an aggressive new goal: one gown every 60 seconds.
Arizona MEP focused on three key areas to reach that goal:
- Applying Lean manufacturing principles to expand and optimize production lines
- Increasing and training the production workforce
- Developing an outsourcing strategy with contract manufacturers
FABRIC’s production space had originally been configured for small, specialized batches. Arizona MEP coached management on Lean principles, helped design production lines to optimize quality and throughput, tracked inputs and outputs, and supported the hiring and training of sewing machine operators.
Four production lines were added incrementally, allowing continuous improvement through time studies and quality inspections. Arizona MEP also provided both temp-to-hire and direct-hire support to fill roles including sewing machine operators, production supervisors, and a staffing manager.
A structured training program was developed to cross-train employees across production stages, ensuring workers understood both upstream and downstream impacts of their roles.
Expanding Capacity Through Outsourcing
Even with four production lines and two shifts planned to reach 2,000 gowns per day at its facility, FABRIC needed additional capacity to meet demand. Arizona MEP helped develop an outsourcing strategy, including product specifications, contract manufacturer evaluations, and contract negotiations.
As a result, FABRIC began setting up three Arizona-based contract manufacturers to expand production capacity.
Scaling Output in Six Weeks
In just six weeks, Arizona MEP helped FABRIC increase production during a single shift from approximately 24 gowns per day to 1,250 gowns per day, moving from one gown every 20 minutes to one gown every 60 seconds.
Once operating at full capacity with four production lines and two shifts, FABRIC expects to exceed 2,000 gowns per day while meeting FDA and hospital quality requirements.
The effort also strengthened FABRIC’s long-term mission. The organization can now demonstrate to startup fashion brands that it has the capability to design and manufacture high-volume and specialty apparel both in-house and through Arizona-based manufacturing partners.
“Manufacturers may think Arizona MEP is a state bureaucracy with cookie-cutter programs, but our experience was the opposite,” said Barry. “Arizona MEP was creative, responsive, and focused on our specific challenges. They supported us in a personal, practical, and genuinely helpful way.”