Transense Technologies Share Discussion Threads

[piggyinthemiddle] 02/4/2017 15:56

So I take it that Sensor Technologies are a rival?

[sojourno] 02/4/2017 13:37

Acoustic Wave Sensor Market to Increase Steadily by 2016-2024
(27th March '17)

Gear Units go Digital (Siemens AG)


...and Sensor Technologies round-up:-


I'm still unclear though how we fit in to the non-automotive torque sensing business.

[piggyinthemiddle] 02/4/2017 10:17

Yes,thanks for that MC and timbo.
Could either of you gauge the mood of the directors? Obviously ,given the fall in the share price and the large amount of no-shows to the presentation,I wouldn`t expect them to be over the moon but were they down,bullish,defiant(as in that`s the best we can do atm)or perhaps maybe confident in the eventual outcome?

[peterblok] 01/4/2017 16:43

And thank you from me . . .

[loveder] 01/4/2017 14:10

Thanks MC and timbo.

[sojourno] 01/4/2017 12:49

Thanks MC.

[major courtenay] 01/4/2017 10:39

Thoughts. This is from memory and without notes and based on both the presentation and informal discussions.
Downside:
• No GE royalty for "several years" I found this quite disappointing and had hoped income would come on stream within two or three years of final license payment. It could well be a good deal longer than that.
• Slow iprobe sales. There is market penetration but momentum is very slow to build. At least there are steady if modest sales.
• Increased expenses.
• Delayed itrack uptake.
• No "massive" breakthrough likely in the near future in any area of the business.
• I made a note after the previous meeting to discount automotive and while there is a degree of movement now from Michelin I don't see a reason to change my view at this stage.

On the upside:
• GE may have another division which wishes to buy a license.
• The European wallflower/Nessie may step out of the shadows.
• Cash reserves reasonable.
• The itrack trials. This was the highlight of the meeting for me. If you want concrete evidence of the efficacy of our product, this is as close a you get. Previous maximum number of concurrently running trials was 3, or 4 if you want to be generous with how you define the trial period. To have 12 now is progress. I don't think it's unreasonable to extrapolate income on this basis - as some of the above posts have done, though I reiterate I don't think this is a massive breakthrough situation. It's a case of potentially going from loss making to brekeven/reasonable profit and essentially staving off fundraising/bankruptcy. It's worth mentioning the increased expense at this stage as being in prep for meeting demand here, so there is a defined business case and not just things running out of control.
• The control room and analytics. This is adding real value and has helped our sales in the itrack dept. I was impressed by the robust systems we've developed to intervene to stop things going wrong in expensive and life threatening ways whilst keeping the vehicles running and productive at the same time.
I have missed plenty of things, but the above is uppermost in my mind. The meeting was poorly attended. The RNS's actually made me more inclined to attend to actually see what the hell was going on. I am overweight TRT and cannot afford to ignore underwhelming announcements. Probably more useful for us to attend a worrying/ambivalent meeting than a congratulatory one. I have sold a small portion but it is to help me sleep at night and on balance I have not seen or heard anything to make me re evaluate my overall view which is positive, while accepting the high degree of risk involved. MC.

[sojourno] 31/3/2017 11:30

I'm sure it's possible to geolocate with complementary radio.

[weyweyumfozo] 31/3/2017 09:28

Thanks timbo - very interesting.

[willoicc] 31/3/2017 09:16

Can they not put relay masts at the top of the mines to cover the areas in shadow?

[dieseltaylor] 31/3/2017 07:20

As you will note we have GPS and Glosnass and this is why
" Abstract:
This paper discusses the use of GPS in open pit mining. Existing applications are presented to show how GPS is already being used for dispatch of haul-trucks, navigation and positioning of shovels and drills, as well as conventional survey tasks. The limitations of GPS-based technology are discussed. Of all the problems presented by the mine environment (multipath, high vibration, restricted visibility), one problem stands out as by far the most significant: restricted visibility. A GPS receiver operating in an open-pit mine will often "see" only half the sky, severely restricting the number of satellites available to it. This is of particular importance for high accuracy "RTK" systems (Real-Time Kinematic, delivering centimeter to decimeter accuracy). RTK receivers require five or more satellites to initialize the system. In an environment with 30/spl deg/ mask angles (typical for many open-pit mines), 5 or more GPS satellites are visible only about one-third of the day. A solution to the visibility problem is presented by augmenting the GPS system with other navigation satellites. This paper presents results obtained using GPS receivers augmented by the only other precision navigation satellites available today: the Russian GLONASS system. Comparison of GPS-only sensors to GLONASS-augmented GPS sensors are made. Finally, examples of data from actual operating mines are presented.
Published in: Position Location and Navigation Symposium, IEEE 1998
Date of Conference: 20-23 April 1996
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 06 August 2002
ISBN Information:

INSPEC Accession Number: 6026655
DOI: 10.1109/PLANS.1998.670211
Publisher: IEEE

[dieseltaylor] 31/3/2017 07:19

amt - Are you being daft? The trials it was said and reported by Timmbo could be as many as ten trucks which would very strongly suggest that there are significantly more trucks at the mine. Ten trucks a mine is some pretty small mines. Perhaps it is 30 per mine with a couple of biggies on top. Kumba AFAIR was 50?

[amt] 30/3/2017 23:25

Good stuff Timbo. So currently 12 trials. Lets say that equals 100 trucks. At usd 6k per truck equals 600k per annum. Perhaps another 600k for analytics. That doesnt look great. We only get 600k to 1200k usd annual turnover if all opportunities are converted. I am a bit amazed that after years of development they are still interpreting the data manually.

[dieseltaylor] 30/3/2017 22:36

mattjos - I am not sure how you derive your 3 to 4 years away. Each of those trials could be in a 50 truck mine and sign up within the year. We do not have that rather important information. If we have agents in other countries, or Otraco add it one of the mines where they are responsible for trucks then that is also good.

BTW the ability to measure haul roads was a separate "industry" and that comes as part of the package with iTrack. Some years back I read a very lengthy piece by AFAIR Goodyear on all the factors affecting tyres and the importance of proper grading, curves, and cleaning.

[dieseltaylor] 30/3/2017 22:31

Good stuff Timbo. Lots of interesting data.

[sojourno] 30/3/2017 22:28

Mattjos... I thought you'd already established that TRT doesn't meet your investing criteria or risk profile.

[mattjos] 30/3/2017 22:22

So, at least 3 if not 4 years away from just breakeven assuming 100% sales conversion rate.Hopeless

[albert_einstein] 30/3/2017 22:00

Thanks Timbo.

[sojourno] 30/3/2017 19:34

Thanks timbo003, much appreciated.

[lfc4ever] 30/3/2017 18:50

Timbo- many thanks for taking the time to type that all up.
Anything said about GM? When we put our hands in our pockets to stave off Bishop, the plan was some short term quick and dirty revenue from what is now iProbe/ iTrack to tide us over before the automotive torque kicked in, whereupon we would all buy yachts and retire. That seems like a long time ago!

[timbo003] 30/3/2017 18:15

Note: I have redacted some of the numbers, please contact me off board if you need further details


Last night’s investor meeting was held at Davy’s at Woolgate Bar in Basinghall Street (a short walk from Bank tube station). It was not a particularly good venue (too noisy) and there were no projection facilities for the slides, the Rocket Bar just off Old Broad Street would have been a better venue for this sort of meeting, although the minimum spend requirement for hiring the venue may make it a bit more expensive.

There were around 15 attendees, which included around six private investors. The list of investors who had signed up looked like it was around 30, so there were a lot of no-shows.

Graham Storey (CEO) and Melvyn Segal (CFO) gave the presentation, although we had to be content with reading off the handouts due to the absence of projection facilities. We had Q&As throughout the presentation, rather than a defined Q&A session at the end.

Highlights (in no particular order) were as follows:


TranslogiK iTrack:

The big event in the reporting period (6m ending Dec 2016) was last September’s launch of ITrack2, see links to iTrack2 web site and brochure here:



Recent efforts have been focused on roll out of iTrack 2 and switching customers over from an outright sales model to a lease agreement model, which provides advantages for both Transense and their customers.

Under an iTrack 2 lease agreement, the customer pays $6K a year over a 4 year period, if the sensors were to fail (as may happen) these are now replaced free of charge.

If the customer buys outright the cost of the kit is $10k, the kit is under guarantee for 1 year, but thereafter replacing a sensor costs $3K a time.

The cost of goods for each iTrack kit is around $xxxx, so there is a very good gross margin.

The company would be at break even if they can attain xxxxx lease agreements for iTrack.

There are currently have xx lease agreements and a further 300 (approx) lease finance arrangements which they intend to switch to lease agreements on expiry (lease finance starts falling away in about 18 month time).

Once a customer is signed up they are “sticky” so this gives good quality recurring revenue. One factor contributing to the stickiness is the time taken to fit and de-fit the iTrack system and sensors (one day of down time which is typically costed at $120K per day).

There are currently 12 customer trials ongoing for ITrack 2 (this is the most they have ever had for iTrack), each trial may consist of up to 10 trucks.

Trial duration is around 3 months, then the subsequent sales process typically takes a few more months before a purchase order is received.

Analysts forecasts for the full year (to June 30th 2017) assume no contribution from iTrack 2.

Truck tyres typically last for 4 months (front) and 8 months (back).

iTrack2 differs from iTrack1 in several respects, the sensors have been improved and have increased longevity, this benefits both customers and Transense under the new lease agreements: No sensor replacement costs for the customer and better quality revenue stream for Transense. Under the previous sale agreements Transense derived part of the revenue stream from replacement sensors, so they had no interest in increasing longevity of the sensors, but under the lease agreement scheme there is a desire to maximize sensor life.

When a sensor fails, it is not due to it becoming detached. The sensors are attached by extremely strong magnets on the inside rim of the wheel, to replace them it is necessary to (partially) remove the tyre from the rim.

The control centre for iTrack is manned 24 hours/day, currently a lot of data analysis is performed manually, but Transense are developing proprietary algorithms which will automate much of the analysis.

The benefit of providing high quality data analytics is that it can further increase tyre life and decrease downtime.

There are two main causes of Tyre failure: Cuts from rocks and thermal separation.
iTrack2 provides more information than iTrack 1, for example it can now measure acceleration and G force around corners. This can be especially useful for planning the optimal route for a truck when making repeat journeys.

ITrack2 can help prevent thermal separation by indicating the best routes for repetitive truck journeys to prolong tyre life and reduce down time.

A damaged tyre can cause considerable downtime for a truck and it may take days to fix, depending on the location of the truck in the mine. A replacement tyre for a large truck costs around $50K and downtime is costed out at $120K per day.

Data analytics is currently offered free of charge to the customer, it is envisaged that after a trial period of several months it will be charged out at $xxx per annum, this is in addition to the $6K per annum charged for the lease of iTrack2.

Transense anticipate a 100% take up of the data analytics option, the additional data analytics revenue is not included in any analyst forecasts.


TranslogiK Tyre Probes:

The probes are selling in their 100s and are used for monitoring tyres on road going trucks, buses and cars. Michellin have just started fitting RFID tags to all their tyres after many years of talking about it, the TranslogiK probes have the capability to read RFID and there has recently been an uptick in sales of probes associated with the Michellin initiative.

SAW:

The GE contract will not bring in royalty income for several years, although when received, the royalty income will be perpetual, it will not expire when IP expires.

The deal with GE is for just one division, it validates the technology within GE and should lead to other divisions signing up for SAW, although this may take time.
GE competitors are likely to see the GE deal as commercial validation of SAW technology and should be more inclined to trial and license the technology themselves.

[piggyinthemiddle] 30/3/2017 13:35

The only positive I could take from yesterday was the cash position. Appears pretty stable and shows the decision to sell Intellisaw was a good one as that branch was a drain on our resources at £100K a month.
If as drw1 suggests, the prospects out there(and it`s probably Translogik in the short term)come in then we should be set fair for the discernible future.

[peterblok] 30/3/2017 12:13

Thank you Timbo. I was going to go until I saw the rns's in the morning ;(

[drw1] 30/3/2017 11:40

Didn't go yesterday but emailed some questions.
Happy the prospects are real and substantial.
Obviously need them materialise to improve the valuation here.