40 Years of Experience in Coating Technologies: Karakaya86

Report : B. Serhat Cengiz

Since 1986, Karakaya86 has pioneered the development of Turkey's coatings sector, combining family company values with technological innovation. Serving a wide range of industries from automotive to defence manufacturing, the company is shaping the sector's future through robotic automation investments, sustainable production models and technical expertise. Hasan Karakaya, one of the company's founding partners, shared his 40-year journey filled with success in the sector.

You have been operating in the sector for nearly 40 years since 1986. How have you witnessed Turkey's progress in coating technology during this long journey, and what role has Karakaya86 played in this transformation?
Turkey's coatings sector was taking its first steps in the 1970s. Our adventure began in 1986. Looking back at those days, we are talking about a very small market, a narrow sector and almost no technology. The sector began to achieve real technological acceleration after the 1990s. From 1986 to today, as we move towards our 2026 vision, we have witnessed and experienced tremendous growth in the sector. As Karakaya86, we believe we have not been merely an observer of this development, but an actor shaping the sector. We have made serious contributions to bringing the market to its current level. Today we are the market leader in Turkey; however, we have reinforced this leadership not only through revenue size, but through the quality standards, management models and automation solutions we have brought to the sector. In short, I can proudly underline Karakaya86's signature and support in the market's growth.

Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself and Karakaya86's founding story? How did you enter the sector?
I am Hasan Karakaya, born in 1973 in Karabük. I am the youngest of the male children in a family of five siblings—four boys and one girl. Our entry into the sector is actually a story of family solidarity. In 1976, my two older brothers began working in the sector. In 1986, they left their existing company and the four brothers founded Karakaya86 together. As a coating-focused company, in our early years we only did zinc coating. After specializing in this field until 1993, we opened our second and third branches. 1997 was a critical turning point for us; in line with our customers' demands and world trends, we brought our cataphoretic coating line into operation. This facility had the distinction of being the first coating process working on a contract basis in Turkey. Karakaya86 is a well-established family company where each partner owns 25 percent, and the figures we have reached today are the result of this partnership.

You provide services in different processes such as cataphoretic coating, alkaline zinc, nickel and electrostatic powder coating. How do your customers' sector distribution and preferences among these processes take shape?
We have expertise in all the processes you mentioned and provide a wide range of services to our customers. Our operations proceed along three main tracks. Cataphoretic coating is the locomotive of our company and our largest revenue item. It is followed by electrostatic powder coating and alkaline zinc/nickel processes. Our customers' preferences are determined entirely by technical requirements. If long-term and high corrosion performance is desired, our customers focus on cataphoresis. If appearance is the priority, we recommend powder coating; when component assembly parts are involved, we suggest alkaline zinc and nickel coatings.

Each process has its own "specific weight" and coating thickness. For example, we cannot use powder coating or cataphoresis on assembly parts; we prefer alkaline zinc. Due to UV resistance in outdoor environments, powder coating gains weight on chassis and bodywork parts, whereas cataphoresis is used on vehicle chassis. The reason cataphoresis is preferred is not only that it is on the unseen parts of the vehicle; it provides tremendous corrosion resistance with a very thin coating and is much more economical than other processes.

Our largest market is the automotive sector; we can coat everything from shock absorbers to seat parts, from engine components to the battery housings of today's trending electric vehicles.

Your industrial coating facility projects for MKE are quite noteworthy. Could you tell us about the added value and technology transfer approach you provide to customers in your facility setup services?
Karakaya86 is not just a coating service provider; it is also a technology company that builds its own processes. All our processes are designed, drawn and manufactured by our in-house expert team. The biggest factor in MKE's choosing us was our identity as both an operator and a facility builder. We provided them not just a machine line, but an operational vision. We revised their existing layout designs and optimized everything from bath sequencing to chemical usage rates.

Our approach is based on the principle of "minimum chemicals, maximum efficiency". This optimization not only increases profitability, but also minimizes environmental harm. We provide a kind of engineering consultancy to our customers. Sometimes we can redirect a customer who comes to us with a powder coating request towards cataphoresis or vice versa by analyzing their product's area of use. Being able to say "this product is quality but this process is not suitable for it" is the real engineering service we provide to the sector. With this "win-win" model, both the customer, us and our country benefit.

With your TUBITAK-supported R&D project, you have developed robotic control and packaging systems. What is the contribution of this system to your production processes and what are your future goals?
As Karakaya86, we are taking technological leadership in the coatings sector. No other company in Turkey's contract coating sector uses 6- or 8-axis robotic systems. We have successfully completed our first project, and now at our İzmit facility we are building a much more advanced system for electric vehicle batteries. This system is a massive automation and software project featuring robotic suspension, collection and camera controls that measure surface roughness and inspect the product from start to finish. These investments provide us with three main contributions: First, we take quality beyond the human eye; by monitoring the product's input and output micron values, we reduce errors to zero. Second, by optimizing our production speed, we make our line more stable. Third, we gain approximately 20 percent advantage in labour costs, adding energy and efficiency. Our vision is to be the company of "the bests" that carries out coating in the most technological and most economical way.

You have a wide geographical presence with five facilities in total in Gebze, İzmit, Hendek and Aksaray (and six with your group company). What are the advantages and managerial challenges of this multi-location structure?
The main motivation that drove us to different geographies on our growth journey was the desire to be close to our customers. We went to Adapazarı at Toyota's invitation, to Aksaray at Mercedes' request. This strategy created a "win-win" situation for all of us. When we went next to our customer, we made their logistics processes easier and also increased our own profitability. We also provided serious energy savings to the country's economy; for example, by preventing a product in Aksaray from having to travel 650 kilometres to Gebze for coating. Another major advantage of being multi-location is the guarantee of "uninterrupted service". We have not needed this option so far, but if we experience a problem at one of our facilities, our customer knows that our other facilities can take over production under the same conditions and quality. We have one rule: we do not operate our facilities on three shifts except in very urgent situations. We keep the third shift as a "safety area" to be able to respond to our customers' sudden capacity increases or to support our other facilities in case of any disruptions. Of course, there are challenges to managing distant locations, but as a corporate family company, we develop central management models to transform these challenges into added value.

What strategy does Karakaya86 follow on sustainability, waste management and energy efficiency?
Environmental sensitivity is our red line. In all our facilities, we dispose of wastewater in our own chemical treatment plants. In fact, we have projects to recover water through advanced treatment systems. On chemical usage, we are transitioning to more "soft" and environmentally friendly products along with our R&D team. We have particularly launched a revolutionary application regarding acid baths. While aged acid baths normally need to be emptied, we continuously clean the acid with ion-exchange resin systems we have installed. This way we can use acid baths 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without ever emptying them. We are conducting similar work for oil bath applications; we have already extended the life of baths with separator systems, and our 2026 goal is to make these baths completely disposal-free as well. On the energy side, we have completed our Solar Energy Plant (GES) investments in 4 of our 6 companies. By producing 40 percent of the energy we consume from our own rooftops, we are contributing to a sustainable future.