Interview with Açelya Baç, Corporate Services Manager at İlke Endüstriyel

In the interview we conducted, Açelya Baç, Corporate Services Manager at İlke Endüstriyel A.Ş., answered our questions. Açelya Baç provided detailed information about the company's development process and its current structure.

Could you briefly tell our readers about yourself, your education and your professional background?

I was born in Izmir in 1989. After attending Izmir Saint Joseph French High School, I graduated from the Economics department at Koç University. After graduation, I started my professional career as an analyst at a management consulting firm. This gave me the opportunity to observe many companies and analyze their management practices. After 3 years, I began working at our family company, İlke Endüstriyel. Since I spent my summers at the company since childhood, I was not unfamiliar with the sector and market. During the company's institutionalization efforts, I had the opportunity to observe all business processes and get to know our entire working team.

Could you provide information about İlke Endüstriyel A.Ş.'s founding process and the stages it has gone through to reach today? What is İlke Endüstriyel's current structure?

İlke Endüstriyel was founded in 1989 in Izmir as Turkey's first company producing automobile paint booths to European standards. Today, it is a strong brand in the paint booth sector in our country. İlke began selling Fırat brand, Turkey's first paint booth, in 1993. The company started its first exports in 1998 and currently exports 70% of its production abroad. The production facility built on a 2,500 m² plot of land in Manisa in 1999 now occupies an area of 15,000 m² with 9,500 m² of enclosed space following the purchase of neighboring parcels. To date, it ranks among the brands that best represent Turkey's name abroad. Without the backing of any major company, it has grown from nothing and today, with a team of ninety people, it supports both the machinery manufacturing sector and the country's industry both in Turkey and abroad. In addition to the production facility in Manisa, there is a management office in Izmir. The majority of our sales are conducted through dealers. Considering our dealers as part of our working teams, we can say that we are the largest and most established company in the sector in Turkey. As of 2016, our export sales exceeded 50% of our turnover (and 70% as of the end of 2017). As a result of our stable company structure and experience spanning over 28 years, we have completed many successful projects supported by the government. With our ongoing research and development, innovation, and import-substitution projects supported by TUBITAK, KOSGEB, and Development Agencies, we continue to develop and grow.

What are the main sectors İlke Endüstriyel supplies and what types of products does it provide? Could you provide information about İlke Endüstriyel's products, brands and services?

İlke Endüstriyel manufactures Custom Paint Booths and Paint Shop Facilities tailored to customer needs. 90% of our production consists of custom projects. We divide our products into automotive and industrial categories. Products we classify as industrial include liquid and powder paint application facilities, all surface preparation lines (blasting, iron phosphate, zinc phosphate, spray or immersion lines for nano technology coating purposes), drying/baking ovens, special cabins with humidity and temperature conditioning required in paint shops, special process ovens up to 230°C, furniture painting lines and cabins. In short, we design and manufacture custom projects and systems for any manufacturing company that paints its products. Assembly and commissioning services are also provided for paint facilities prepared on a turnkey basis. The software and control panels of all our products are designed by specialized Electrical/Electronics Engineers working within our company in accordance with customer needs and Industry 4.0, manufactured by our expert team, and commissioned at customer facilities.

Could you tell us about your domestic and export sales activities? What types of products do you mainly sell to which regions domestically and abroad?

As İlke Endüstriyel, we export 70% of our sales abroad. Through our partner company Ilke Deutschland GmbH in Germany, Germany is our largest export destination. In addition, thanks to our strong dealers in Spain, France, England, and South Africa, we achieve high sales rates in these regions as well. Our goal in recent periods includes bringing our brand to the Canadian and American markets; in this direction, market-oriented research and development work is being conducted by our professional engineers in the field. Looking at our domestic sales, since 2016, due to European manufacturers' shift towards high-technology products, we have implemented industrial paint shop facility installations for important automotive companies' suppliers known in the market. We anticipate that demand for industrial paint shop facilities will increase further in the coming period.

What types of work do you conduct in innovation and research and development as İlke Endüstriyel? Do you have projects developed as part of university-industry cooperation, and if so, what are they?

We have been in the sector for over 28 years. İlke Endüstriyel has been a company open to continuous innovation from the past to today. It reflects this vision and mission in its products. Research and development work continues on improving existing products. It conducts its work with a research and development and project planning team it has created in the Technopark of Celal Bayar University. We have a special horizontal painting line project supported by TUBITAK for 2017. Under this project scope, we have collaborated with the Celal Bayar University Mechanical Engineering Department on Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer topics, and utilized this accumulated knowledge in our designs. İlke Endüstriyel has always been a company that achieves firsts in the sector. We have achieved many firsts, including Turkey's first center-mounted winch cabin, first explosion-proof lighting cabin, first LED-lit cabin, first cabin with A1 fire-resistance class, and we have always taken pride in these achievements. As İlke Endüstriyel, since we have established investment and continuous development as standard thinking, in just the last 2 years we have made EUR 1,800,000 in machinery investments. The prominent investments among these are the purchase of Trumpf TruPunch 2000 and TruBendCenter 5030. In this way, we aim to expand our target audience with higher quality products and provide quality products to all our customers.

Could you provide information about İlke Endüstriyel's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you say about your work regarding occupational health and safety?

Since occupational health and safety and environmental impacts are among the specification subjects of the facilities we produce, we have accumulated knowledge on these matters. In addition to our products being environmentally friendly, İlke Endüstriyel produces in our own factory with an environmentally conscious approach and adopts sustainable environmental policies suitable for the purpose of our sector. Regarding occupational health and safety, we hold weekly meetings with factory section supervisors and assess the risks of the work performed within each department; we complete preventive and corrective action forms regarding how the relevant work could be made easier and safer.

Could we learn your thoughts about the industrial paints, coatings and surface treatment sectors in Turkey? In terms of these sectors, what do you think are Turkey's advantages and disadvantages?

Turkey's greatest shortcoming in this field is the lack of knowledge among companies in the paint shop and coating sectors, and the abundance of companies making sales without being experts in the field. Although we always try to transfer knowledge related to the subject to companies that will invest, the fact that investing companies implement projects in limited time without conducting necessary feasibility studies produces negative results for both parties. The design of paint shop facilities is directly influenced by the properties of the parts to be painted and production capacity, and the success of these forecasts directly affects the facility's productivity and operating cost. We always aim to find the optimal balance between investment cost and operating cost for our customers. Unfortunately, non-expert companies in our sector can mislead investors by proposing very low-cost facilities at the expense of significantly raising operating costs and even creating major risks in the facility. Another problem is companies operating in the market periodically with the identity of a manufacturing company. After these temporary companies carry out incorrect projects and low-profile work, problems arise for investing companies, which indirectly affects us as well.

What criteria are prioritized when İlke Endüstriyel creates investment plans? Does İlke Endüstriyel have investment plans for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

Investments never stop. As technology advances, investment is inevitable. It is unavoidable that companies that do not invest will eventually enter a period of decline and stagnation. The stability of the market and our strategy focused on new international markets necessitate growth and modernization in production. For this reason, we added new machines to our machinery park in 2017. Renewal and modernization of machinery and equipment will continue in 2018. With our approved KOBİGEL project worth TRY 1,300,000 and our submitted Development Agency project, we continue our investments at full speed. Within 2018, installing a feeding robot in front of our sheet metal bending center and redesigning our existing paint shop with a Power and Free conveyor system are on our agenda. We aim to renew our current (4+4) 8-meter tandem press brake with a (4+4) 8-meter servo tandem press brake and improve the quality in semi-finished production. We started using SAP in 2016. With this, we are properly tracking our inventory controls and bill of materials. However, this is not enough; our research on the subject continues, and in the near future we aim to effectively manage production processes end-to-end with a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) investment that will allow us to control production processes.