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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FIBRESPIN (New Generation of High Speed FIBRE SPINning machines)

Teaser

Summary

FIBRESPIN is an innovative textile production machine, designed for producing spools of wool/cotton fibres. Thanks to our innovative design including use of high-tech materials, an innovative electro-magnetic braking system and advanced electronic control of the whole machine, FIBRESPIN will greatly reduce maintenance downtimes and component breakage (almost eliminated), as well as strongly boost productivity, outperforming existing machines (+52% outputs).

The feasibility study, conducted from September, 2015 to December, 2015, has been made to validate our approach to market as well as our technology, including a freedom to operate study and risk analysis. We have fully defined the technical specifications, prototype testing, financial forecasting of various production scenarios, and planning through full-scale production.

The first partner and coordinator of this project, Cognetex, based in Imola in Italy, have been manufacturing high quality textile machinery for over 60 years. Our 2015 turnover was ~â‚¬4.2million and we currently employ ~30 workers, providing machinery to ~270 customers throughout the world (i.e. EU, Asia, Middle East). In Cognetex we manufacture different types of machinery for the Textile industry. This ranges from our IDEA series of Worsted Ring Spinning Frames, used to spin individual wool fibres onto spools, to our Tow to Top Stretch Breaking Lines, which are designed for producing yarns, which are basically wools consisting of multi-fibres. All of our machines can also incorporate state-of-the-art hardware/software technology, making them fully automated and user-friendly systems.
The second partner, Elettronica GF, is an Italian hardware and software manufacturer based in Faenza, with turnover of â‚¬4.3million and 30 employees, to participate in this project as a partner to develop and exclusively supply the necessary hardware-software embedded systems in FIBRESPIN.
Key stakeholders and interesting end users, such as Embul Investment and Gazzetto, will participate in the testing and industrial validation.

Work performed

FIBRESPIN is an innovative textile production machine, designed for producing spools of wool/cotton fibres outperforming existing machines. Thanks to an innovative design and the use of high-tech materials (i.e. ceramic bearings) we aim to achieve:
1 Productivity improvement (higher spindle speed) and energy savings.
2 Maintenance downtimes reduction (downtimes to replace the ring traveller).

During this 4-month feasibility study we have validated both the technology and the business opportunity:
We have validated the configuration assumed in the preliminary stages of the project. The components have been selected and developed, assembled together, tested and optimized. Following these developments, a preliminary risk analysis has been performed. Our team (Cognetex + Elettronica GF) has prepared a complete Execution Plan for the remaining developments before commercialisation.

In order to create a convincing and attractive commercial product, we have taken the following specific actions to achieve the following business objectives:
1) We have detailed the potential market for FIBRESPIN
2) We have built a unique value proposition, pricing policy and selling arguments
3) We have validated the business model and confirmed our sales projections. Having the idea very clear for future machinery, and also the opportunity to retrofit our innovative system on existing machines, we have carried out a worst-case Financial Feasibility Study that only takes into account wool machines and does not consider revenues coming from the huge retrofit market.
4) Finally, we have already filed an application for patent, whose outcome we are awaiting. In the meanwhile, we have performed a provisional freedom-to-operate analysis in order to ensure that we do not infringe on third party intellectual property rights. As a result, we have not found any previous patent that restricts our freedom to operate.

Final results

Thanks to FIBRESPIN, Cognetex will consolidate its leadership in its market achieving 30% market quote (24,000 spindles annual sales), that will produce cumulative revenues of â‚¬5.76million, resulting in a profit of â‚¬1.728 million and a RoI (5-years) of 1.22. Moreover, Cognetex will own all results generated by FIBRESPIN including current filed patent which will give them advantage over their competitors.

Thanks to FIBRESPIN EGF will become the exclusive provider of electronic component and systems for Cognetex, for at least the first 2.5 years of business that will produce cumulative revenues of â‚¬2.310 million, resulting in a profit of â‚¬1.155 million and a RoI (5-years) of 1.27. Moreover, the experienced achieved developing electro-magnetic braking systems will expand our toolbox of knowledge, an interesting technology that could also be applied to other industrial sectors.