March 26, 2012 - With Beacon(TM), carbon fiber manufacturers can evaluate carbon footprint of their manufacturing process and identify opportunities for improvement. Model analyzes various plant configurations and capacities, precursors, integration scenarios, and energy recovery options and ranks environmental impact of process line. This establishes baseline and facility-specific metric that can be used to develop improvement plans to drive greater energy recovery and lower operating costs.

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Harper International Corp.
100 W. Drullard Ave.
Lancaster, NY, 14086, USA

Buffalo, NY - Harper International, world leader in thermal processing solutions for advanced materials, announced today the launch of Beacon(TM), a ground-breaking new program offering carbon fiber manufacturers the ability to evaluate the carbon footprint of their manufacturing process and identify opportunities for improvement.

With its extensive experience in the industry since the market's inception, Harper has developed a model that analyzes various plant configurations and capacities, precursors, integration scenarios and energy recovery options and ranks the environmental impact of the process line. This endeavor establishes a baseline and a facility-specific metric that can be used to develop improvement plans to drive greater energy recovery and lower operating costs.

"The carbon fiber industry is at a critical maturity point where we must focus on achieving greatest output cost effectively with environmental responsibility in order to secure adoption in future market applications such as in automotive," commented Robert Blackmon, VP of Integrated Systems at Harper.

"Our unparalleled expertise in this market makes Harper uniquely qualified to create this roadmap for our customers to enable their success. As the industry grows, it will undoubtedly be necessary to more attentively consider environmental impact. The Beacon program is the only offering that comprehensively examines energy utilization in detail and develops solutions for improvement. We expect many to be inspired by this innovation, however Harper is clearly leading the way."

A new website, harperbeacon.com, also launched as a part of the program. On this site, users can experience the concept of Beacon with a preview survey that evaluates the carbon footprint in a short example model. The complete Beacon model is a complex analysis of over a hundred design parameters. This work expands upon Harper's previous cost modeling providing insight into the impact of energy efficiency as a part of the overall cost of operations.

Robert Blackmon will be presenting on Beacon during the Technical Sales Presentations at JEC Europe on Tuesday, March 27th, at 14:30pm. These endeavors were supported with inputs from industry experts including Anguil Environmental Systems.

About Harper International

Harper International is a global leader in complete thermal processing solutions, as well as technical services essential for the production of advanced materials. From concept to commercialization, from research scale to full production line operations, Harper is perpetually on the cutting edge. For decades, we have pioneered some of the world's most innovative, customized systems, with a focus on processing materials at high temperature and in non-ambient atmospheres. For additional information about Harper, please visit harperintl.com or email us at info@harperintl.com.

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