AstenJohnson strives to help our customers obtain a quality product at maximum machine efficiency and minimum cost. Achieving this goal requires a strong, comprehensive product development effort. AstenJohnson's Product Development is divided into three functional areas:

• New Product Development (NPD), based at regional manufacturing sites
• Advanced Product Development (APD), including traditional R&D and based at our Kanata facility in Canada
• Product and Materials Analysis (PMA), which provides broad based value-added laboratory services for our manufacturing sites and our customers. The PMA group is also based at Kanata.
  

These three groups work in concert to:

• Develop innovative products and processes that give a competitive edge to both AstenJohnson and its customers
• Strengthen the technical understanding of our products and their interaction with machines by developing unique product characterization tests and by maintaining contacts with our customers' technical groups, paper machinery builders, industry research facilities and universities.
• Evaluate new technologies that might impact our industry.
• Conduct leading R&D, as directed by senior management, to optimize strategic opportunities for stakeholders.
• Provide specialized laboratory and technical services for our operating divisions and their customers.

Facilities & Capabilities
Our main APD center is a modern, world-class facility complemented with the latest analytical instruments. Additionally, we have full pilot manufacturing capability and, therefore, are not hindered by either the production demands of operating divisions or their manufacturing limitations when novel prototype products are needed on a priority basis. Prototype fabrics can be made from standard or experimental materials. The samples can then be subjected to a battery of standard and specialized performance characterization tests which determine whether the customer's requirements have been achieved. Some examples include high velocity sheet formation, wet abrasion resistance, surface contact, sheet dewatering, drying rates, seam durability, mechanical strength, dynamic compression resistance, compressed water permeability in the three orthogonal planes and shower damage resistance.

Materials Research
Many of the demands on fabric performance for the coming decades will require the development of sophisticated materials tailored to survive the rigors of papermaking. Our monofilament R&D facilities play an important role in achieving this goal by developing proprietary yarns. Complete pilot line facilities, which include underwater pelletizing, single and twin screw extrusion, co-extrusion, plasma coating, solid-state polymerization, hot air stretching and hot water stretching, allow development to proceed unhindered by production demands. Our success and commitment to innovation have been demonstrated by such developments as:

• Flat monofilament for dryer fabrics, now the industry standard
• Hollow monofilament for press felts and dryer fabrics
• Contamination resistant monofilaments for forming fabrics (Hydrolease) and dryer fabrics (Rezist, UltraClean)
• PEEK spirals for thin line coil seams and seam pintles
• Wear-resistant MONALLOY weft, the first significant new forming fabric material developed for the industry since the 1960's
• Use of PPS in dryer fabrics to impart immunity to hydrolysis (MonoStar, HT)

Patent Portfolio
The AstenJohnson intellectual portfolio contains 408 patents, all of which are currently still in force, and 300 pending applications. Our total commitment to providing innovative products has been proven time and time again over the 200+ year history of our organization.