>>> A look back at the history of Kraus

High-tech team fights credit card fraud

Transconna's Kraus Industries Ltd. has developed point-of-sale computer terminals which could shut the tank on credit card fraud at service stations and save oil at service stations and save oil companies millions of dollars yearly in paperwork.

They illustrate the kind of leading-edge technology company owner Hans Kraus has consistently fostered or conceived since arriving in Winnipeg from West Germany 26 years ago.

The latest development, in fact, is just another step in the direction initiated by Kraus Industries, 204 Day Street, when it became Canada's first manufacturer in 1972 of computer systems for service station pumps and the electronic consoles for inside the stations.

Remote Controlled

At least 70 per cent of the Transcona firm's business is with Canada's oil industry, and about 90 per cent of sales from its 20 electronic products are domestic.

Currently, owner kraus is advising th egovernment-owned Mexican oil industry on how to set up a plant to manufacture electronic gasoline pump heads. The transcona firm would sell the transfer of its technology to the Mexicans in exchange for 20 per ccent ownership, plus royalties.

Only six years ago, the company's sales were about 2 million. This year's volume will range from $12 million to $14 million, Kraus says.

He credits the growth to the inventive genius of his engineering staff and his free spending on research and development, which totals $380,000 this year.

The company employs 43 in a two-storey building, much of whose 20,000 square feet appear to be a jungle of electronics wizardry to a visitor.

The environment reflects the free flight Kraus gives his own inventive genius and that of his engineers.

The firm was the first in North America to develop automatic temperature compensation devices for retail propane pumps. The device, about the size of a cigarette lighter, accurately adjusts pump readings in line with the expansion and contraction wich occur in the propane under various temperatures. It ensures that the correct amount of fuel is dispensed regardless of how heat or cold has affected propane volume inside the pump.

The Kraus story reveals how dramatically immigrants can enrich Canada's workplace. His enterprise began taking root on virtually the first day he arrived here just shy of 20 in May, 1960, and which no doubt had its genesis in the training and experience he brought with him from Stuttgart.

In Germany, Kraus invented several devices before he was 18. He was then working for an industrial firm which supplied components to German car manufacturers - and it was that company which financed his technical university education in mechanical and electrical engineering during his five years on its payroll.

Kraus had become a full-fledged mechanic on all European-made cars by the time he came to Canada for a holiday visit to a friend in 1960. The visit never ended because Kraus immediately fell in love with this country. He sensed opportunities for unrestrained creativity in Canada's vastness.

With his savings, Kraus then leased a service station in Transcona and ultimately left the station's operation to his staff while he concentrated on inventing at his West Kildonan home.

Kraus called the garage operation Computronics International. Inventions there included an automated punch press for a signboard manufacturer; a light-equipped car plug which indicated whether a car's block heater was operating properly, and a hovercraft for a U.S. Farm implement manufacturer.

Kraus formally incorporated the enterprise under his own name in 1970 on the advice of his lawyers, who noted that the name Computronics was being commonly used and could not only damage marketing of his products but get him into unnecessary legal squabbles as well.

By this point Kraus was well into developing the world's first electronics system for tabulating gasoline purchases. He has also moved out of his garage and into a 1,600 square-foot building at 118 Melrose Avenue West in Transcona, Winnipeg. In 1972, the company's electronic reading controls began replacing the electromechanical counters in station pumps.

Called Micro IP, the system permits one attendant to control the operation of up teo 12 pumps simply by pushing buttons on a small console. The computerized linkup betweek console an pump records the volume and value of individual sales, shows whether they were cash or credit, indicates how much gasoline remains in teh tanks, and produces a readout of the station's daily transactions.

Today, Kraus's microcomputers are in 13,000 of Canada's 25,000 pumps with electronic reading controls. Roughly 3,500 of Canada's 6,000 self-serve stations operate with his company's equipment.

Press Button

All along, Kraus has also shown a keen ability in hiring innovative talent. His people developed a remote control car engine starter refined from the patent of an American inventor who approached the firm. Called Command Start, it's a precision-made, transmitter-equipped instrument that will start a locked car without any keys in the ignition.

The starter is being produced by the Command Start firm headed by Kraus's son, Juergen, in the old Melrose Avenue building. Kraus Industries moved from that site when it bought its present quarters in 1978.

Kraus purchased the Day Street building, a former curling club just east of Regent Avenue, for $90,000 and, naturally, acted as his own contractor for the renovation and subsequent $240,000 addition of 14,000 square feet to the structure's original 6,000 square feet. Innovation, he realized, must have room to flourish.

Written By: Wally Dennison
Published originally on Friday, November 14, 1986