General Manager of Teknokon Makina, Mr. Serdar Ünsal

We conducted an interview with Serdar Ünsal, General Manager of Teknokon Makina, about the technologies the company employs, its targets for the coming years, and the advantages these will bring to the sector.

Could you please tell our readers about yourself and your professional background?

After completing my education at Istanbul Erkek High School and Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, I obtained a master's degree in materials and manufacturing from the Institute of Science and Technology at Istanbul Technical University. In the meantime, I began working at the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey. Following military service, I started work at Siemens Turkey and held various management positions during my long tenure there. Among my significant contributions were the establishment of the Research and Development Department and the successful management of product development and export processes for Siemens Germany. Later, I was employed as General Manager of Webasto Turkey, a German automotive company, and subsequently held senior management positions at Ytong Turkey, a German-based construction materials producer. I have been working at Teknokon Makina for approximately 8 years now. Through my work experience across various industrial sectors, primarily in overseas projects and partnerships, I have learned that success in business requires industriousness, determination, effective communication and strong human relations.

Could you tell us about Teknokon Makina's success in the sector and your quality policy?

Teknokon Machinery was founded 26 years ago by four engineer partners. We perform mechanical design and fabrication of industrial process equipment, with a significant portion of our customers being leading international engineering firms. We employ a young, dynamic team with extensive experience. Institutional management processes, customer orientation, engineering expertise and rapid response capability are the defining features of our management approach. We rank among the leading companies in mechanical design and manufacturing of static process equipment in our country. We were ranked as one of the fastest growing companies between 2010 and 2012. Our quality and customer-oriented approach is the foundation of our sustainability and continued growth. Quality is no longer merely a competitive criterion on a global scale. Without sufficient quality, you cannot compete. We systematically manage our business processes in accordance with ISO 9001 Quality Management System, ISO 14001 Environmental Management System and OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System certifications. We define quality as superior performance that ensures full compliance with customer expectations, and our goal is to achieve 100% customer satisfaction. We combine high-quality service with customer-oriented approaches and encourage our employees to participate more actively in our processes. Our employees are our most important source of added value; efficient and rapid communication among staff and team spirit are the main factors that maintain high work performance. Our business processes are based on a continuous improvement approach, and we apply target management with quantitative objectives. We also place significant emphasis on supplier cooperation to improve our competitiveness and maintain quality consistency.

What sectors do you serve?

Process equipment is required in nearly all industrial sectors. However, we primarily serve the chemical, mining, food and beverage, oil and gas, energy, refining, petrochemical and cosmetic sectors.

How is your product portfolio? What criteria do you consider when determining your product range?

We operate on a project-based model. Therefore, every product—meaning process equipment—that we produce is designed based on datasheets and guide drawings provided by the customer and fabricated in our facility. We do not manufacture products for stock. We classify our product groups as pressure vessels, atmospheric tanks and silos, reactors and mixing tanks, shell and tube type heat exchangers, special-purpose process equipment, modular skids and pipe spools. Special-purpose process equipment encompasses a wide range of products named according to their function within the process, such as converters, crystallizers, scrubbers, thickeners, chambers and fluid beds. The materials used in our process equipment are generally austenitic, duplex and high-alloy stainless steel, as well as various carbon steel grades.

Could you tell us about your domestic and foreign sales activities? What factors determine your sales strategy?

Marketing and sales are perhaps the most critical aspect of our business, as in any other industrial sector. Since we do not engage in mass production, the excitement of receiving a new order transitions to anticipation of the next order once a project is completed. We work primarily with foreign customers. From the initial customer contact through various stages—including customer convincing, customer audits, request for proposal, preparation of qualified and globally competitive offers, and establishing good communication to secure the job—each step is critical. Once an order is awarded, quality fabrication, on-time delivery and effective communication are essential to securing continued business from the same customer. As in all business, trust is paramount in customer relations. Trust is built on open and honest communication, punctuality, consistency and stability in business dealings, and maintaining these over the long term. This establishes long-term customer commitment and customer loyalty, which is one of the most important factors for company survival. It is critical to satisfy customers technically and in terms of quality both at the proposal stage and during project execution if a purchase order is awarded. Maintaining good communication between our customers and our engineering/design, project management, fabrication and quality departments is the key factor that drives success. We have exported our products to 50 countries worldwide from our facility, which is equipped with modern machinery and equipment. We are also pleased that the process equipment we fabricate is in use at facilities of leading companies in our country.

What services do you offer your customers?

We provide our customers with all services required by an industrial facility, except process design. Process design varies according to sector and final product, and is not currently within our scope of activity. We receive process-related documents such as datasheets, general arrangement drawings and P&ID from the customer. The areas we service in equipment fabrication projects are mechanical engineering and design, project management, purchasing, manufacturing and quality control, packing and worldwide delivery. We also provide third-party services on request and ASME U, S, R stamp and PED/CE marking certification. In addition to process equipment fabrication, Teknokon Industry, one of our group companies, undertakes turnkey site erection works for industrial plants. Maintenance services for industrial plants are provided by Teknokon Service and Maintenance, another group company.

Which innovations do you plan to implement in the coming years? Could you tell us about the advantages of these innovations for your company, your products and your customers?

Our sector is primarily based on metal processing and welding technology and encompasses what might be considered classical technologies. Revolutionary technological developments are not expected in the short term. However, to remain globally competitive—in other words, to produce international-quality equipment at the most suitable price—efficiency across all business processes and manufacturing is increasingly important. In this context, we are renewing our factory machine park in line with technological developments. Although our business type is not generally suitable for automation, we place importance on converting certain manual operations to mechanical processes and developing new manufacturing and assembly methods. We also value input from our direct factory workers through our Improvement Suggestion system to enhance efficiency. Additionally, despite not being a serial manufacturing company, we are implementing a proprietary ERP software to manage internal order opening and closing operations, ensuring that production data is automatically transferred to the system.