Steps Taken for GEBKİM Digital Transformation Center

Chemistry holds strategic importance for Turkey's economy, distinguished by its potential to create added value and capacity to adapt technology. The key to high-value products lies in R&D.

GEBKİM Kimya İhtisas Organize Sanayi Bölgesi has launched initiatives to produce domestic technologies, with the button pressed on establishing a Digital Transformation Centre within the industrial zone. Through this centre, GEBKİM Kimya İhtisas Organize Sanayi Bölgesi will lead technology and digital transformation in the chemical industry. The Digital Transformation Centre to be established within GEBKİM OSB, located in Dilovası, Kocaeli and home to major chemical industry companies, will serve not only GEBKİM OSB firms but also industrial establishments in Kocaeli's chemical ecosystem. Following completion of project feasibility studies and infrastructure setup, the Centre is targeted to commence operations in 2022. Positioned as a chemical technology hub, it will offer services including a Joint R&D Centre, testing and calibration centre, shared project office implementing firms' digital transformation projects, patent creation and branding services. Furthermore, localization is aimed at technology production, testing, calibration and certification processes where external dependency prevails in the chemical sector. Designed as an exemplary model within the scope of the Presidency's Digital Transformation and Domestic Production Support Initiative, the centre will create an appropriate environment for realizing domestic and national projects. The knowledge and know-how shared at GEBKİM Digital Transformation Centre will return to the sector as new technologies, new patents, domestic brands, applications incorporating next-generation technologies, Industry 4.0-focused factories and infrastructure.

A meeting was held at GEBKİM OSB to inform firms about the Digital Transformation Centre project and to gather their expectations and suggestions. The meeting, which began with remarks by GEBKİM Kimya İhtisas Organize Sanayi Bölgesi President Vefa İbrahim Aracı, featured a detailed presentation by Bengü Türk, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PMO Partners, on the project's scope and objectives.

Bengü Türk, also serving as a Commission Member of GEBKİM OSB's Program Development Unit, noted that significant changes affecting the global chemical industry, particularly in Europe, are occurring, and that beyond digitalization, creating a sustainable, green ecosystem is among the most important of these. She stated that the Digital Transformation Centre, intended to serve as a chemical specialization and technology production centre, will provide numerous services. In addition to Chemical Research Laboratory, Pilot Production Facility, Testing and Calibration Services, Regulatory Consulting, Intellectual Property Consulting, Business Network Development and Project and Feasibility Consulting, digital transformation projects and services will be provided. The centre, which will also house 3D printers and a Simulation Laboratory, will enable artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning and Industry 4.0 simulation projects, establishment of new startup companies and access to global investment networks. Producing new technologies and obtaining their patents are also among the Centre's objectives.

GEBKİM Digital Transformation Centre will have advisory boards comprised of names from academia and industry who have achieved significant success with their chemistry work in Turkey and globally. At the Centre, experts from fields such as chemical processes, fundamental chemistry sciences, nanotechnology, biochemistry and analytical chemistry, circular economy and digital technology, conducting doctoral and master's level research, will serve.

Aracı stated that they are working continuously on projects that will contribute to the development of the chemical sector, and that they wish to deliver the Digital Transformation Centre, the final link in these efforts, to the chemical industry as soon as possible. Regarding the centre to be established, Aracı said: "As Turkey's first chemistry-specialized OSB, GEBKİM OSB has implemented many things in terms of physical infrastructure, exemplifying the clustering model. Following the GEBKİM Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, we are also gaining a kindergarten for our region. Now we want to delve into the chemistry of business and serve as an example in domestic technology production. With the ideas, projects and suggestions of our firms, we aim to complete the Digital Transformation Centre project we will build within our OSB within two years. Our objective is to ensure the chemical sector's adaptation to rapidly advancing digital technologies as a centre where knowledge and technology are produced and shared, and simultaneously as an accredited testing centre to meet our firms' needs in this field. Consulting services will also be one of the Centre's strongest areas. Industrial zones play a very important role in developing domestic and national technologies, and as GEBKİM, we are committed to fulfilling our responsibilities in this regard in the best way possible. We will closely cooperate with valued academics from Turkey and abroad and with universities, and we will integrate the Digital Transformation Centre project with GEBKİM MTAL."