Metrohm Turkey General Director Mr. Andre Yanço

Managing Director of Metrohm Turkey Andre Yanço - an enjoyable interview

Please tell us about yourself and your professional background.

I completed my degree in Chemistry Education at the Education Faculty of Boğaziçi University in 2000. Given both the Metrohm-Switzerland tradition and the fact that I come from a family with an entirely academic analytical chemistry background, my education and professional career spanning from my high school years through university and to the present day have encompassed a broad range of roles within the Metrohm Group, from applied chemistry to management in analytical laboratory and process chemistry methodologies and analysis instrumentation. Between 1996 and 2008, I served as Applied Chemist, General Sales Director, and from 2008 to 2014 as General Director of our family company Dr. Kimyager İ. Yanço, which has over 25 years of history with Metrohm in Turkey. Since the beginning of 2014, with the establishment of a new organization called Metrohm Turkey Ölçü Aletleri Ticaret ve Servis Hizmetleri A.Ş. (Metrohm Turkey for short), a subsidiary of the Metrohm Group, I have served as Managing Director for Turkey.

How would you characterize Metrohm's 75 years in the sector? Can you provide information about the brand's success story during this period and the company policies it has adopted?

This year, all Metrohm Group organizations worldwide are celebrating the 75th anniversary of our brand. Founded on 1 April 1943 in Herisau, Switzerland by Bertold Suhner, a young engineer, Metrohm has become an active, successful and global leader brand present in more than 120 countries through its local subsidiaries and authorized representatives over the past 75 years. In today's rapidly changing global economies, companies and brands can be bought and sold in very short periods - and often with highly uncertain outcomes for customers and employees. Such a scenario cannot occur at Metrohm. Since 1982, Metrohm has been owned by the "Metrohm Foundation." This foundation, which has no influence on the company's business operations, sponsors natural science students, supports charitable and humanitarian causes and, most importantly, preserves the independence of the Metrohm organization. Behind Metrohm's success story lie five fundamental principles that have remained valid for over 75 years: Independence, Common Sense, Generosity, Solidarity and Reliability.

Independence

Independence stands out as both a fundamental company value and a key working principle for Metrohm since its founding day. This concept finds expression in a broad framework spanning from technological innovation to product development, from manufacturing to sales and supply networks. Our founder Berthold Suhner expressed this value in these words: "A company should always develop from within, meaning through its own created and acquired assets - even if such development is slow. Just like a plant growing in its natural soil with its own natural strength. This plant will always be much more resilient compared to others whose growth has been supported by artificial fertilizer."

Generosity

The "Metrohm Foundation," which owns the Metrohm Group, both protects the organization's independence and future, and also operates to provide resources for local cultural and charitable purposes, primarily in the Eastern Switzerland region where the factory is located, as well as to support scientific education.

Solidarity

In Metrohm's corporate culture, all groups and individuals are valued as integral parts of a whole with team spirit, and the concept of belonging stands out as a fundamental building block. This concept, which can be summarized as "standing together in good times and bad times," has enabled Metrohm to emerge from all the sector's storms over decades without losses and much stronger. Metrohm is also one of the rare organizations that can show solidarity with the community: Following the tsunami disaster in Asia in December 2004, Metrohm provided significant aid to disaster victims and rebuilt a fishing village of 146 houses devastated on the East Indian coast from the ground up (with all infrastructure), while also providing new motorized fiberglass boats and fishing equipment to all fishermen so they could rebuild their lives.

Reliability

The foundation of Metrohm's success is the continuous trust its customers place in it. Whether in sales and marketing or support and service, our working philosophy of always being close to customers and providing professional service under the slogan "People You Can Trust" combined with superior quality and technological innovation recently earned us the "Silver Recognition Level" award from Ecovadis, a group that evaluates supplier company quality.

What are your product portfolios? Which sectors do you serve?

Our organization's main business activity is to provide marketing, sales, installation, qualification, training, technical support, spare parts supply, calibration, service and repair services related to high-performance analytical chemistry laboratory and process analysis systems under the Metrohm Group brands. Our main product groups can be summarized as: Titration, Ion Chromatography, Direct Measurements (pH, ISE, Conductivity), Electrochemistry (Voltammetry, CVS, Potentiostat/Galvanastats), Spectroscopy (Near-Infrared and Raman), Oxidation Stability Measurements, Liquid Handling and At-line/Online/In-line Process Analyzer solutions applicable to all these technologies in field and plant operations. Given that the specific properties of virtually all substances and materials fundamentally depend on their chemical composition, it is no coincidence that our instruments and applications can be found in all industrial sectors, research institutes and official institutions. Our customers operate in the pharmaceutical, food, petrochemical and water industries primarily, as well as in general chemistry, detergent/cosmetics, textile and automotive industries. Our products are also preferred for use in public water/environmental control and academic education/research fields.

Please tell us about your domestic and international sales activities.

Within the framework of the global quality principles our brand has followed for over 75 years, our primary priority is to present our products and services to our customers directly in the countries where they operate, without any intermediary supplier organizations. In this direction, operating as a direct Metrohm subsidiary, Metrohm Turkey provides services only within Turkey's borders and always works with a focus on local Metrohm sales representatives, local application/support chemists and local service engineers toward the customer.

How do you evaluate the relationship between technology and laboratory equipment?

We observe that high-technology system solutions have been widely used in laboratory analytical chemistry methodologies in the sector for a considerable time. The ability to conduct fast, precise and accurate measurements within the multi-layered quality chain spanning from R&D to product development, from manufacturing to quality control is vital, especially under increasing time pressure. This situation brings with it an increase in both the number and frequency of analysis parameters that need to be measured in laboratories. Today, while manufacturers invest in new and fast laboratory technologies, they simultaneously attempt to transfer these technologies from the laboratory environment directly to the production line. This reality drives the rapid proliferation of new-generation at-line, online and/or inline analysis platforms that operate directly in the plant and provide real-time, continuous and autonomous monitoring capability for parameters required at specific production points. In this context, as Metrohm, we can deliver our laboratory analysis techniques and methods with the same high speed, repeatability and accuracy for in-process applications, allowing us to provide a broad range of solutions meeting various process monitoring requirements in many industries for years under the Metrohm Process Analytics brand as a leading manufacturer. I personally believe that, particularly considering the developments in production technologies, monitoring technologies capable of providing high-speed and high-frequency measurements without interfering with the process and sample throughout the progression from starting materials to intermediate and final products (for example, online/inline near-infrared and Raman spectroscopy) will make their mark on the sector over the next decade and will become the locomotive of the quality assurance/control trend shifting from the laboratory to in-process analysis.

Please tell us about the after-sales services you provide to your customers. How do you evaluate the role of your sales representatives in this service?

As one of Metrohm Group organizations, we provide our customers with a comprehensive service range within the framework of content and quality principles globally defined by our headquarters and standardized across the world. This cycle, which we define as "Metrohm Quality Service," begins with consultation, support and customized solutions to enable our customers to make the most appropriate and correct investment in line with their needs, continues with comprehensive installation, analytical instrument qualification, application support and expert-level training services for newly purchased system(s), and is completed with preventive maintenance, calibration, validation and repair services shaped according to customer requirements and guaranteeing continuous operation and accurate and reliable results throughout the instrument(s)' lifetime. All services provided within the scope of the Metrohm Quality Service cycle are delivered by expert and certified application, support and service professionals. In short, we do not evaluate Metrohm Quality Service as a limited framework covering only after-sales. Therefore, within this cycle, all Metrohm employees (including sales representatives) are considered integral parts of a whole providing service to the customer. All our product group managers as well as all marketing, sales, support and service professionals have independent targets distributed within this framework, and we encourage working at all stages to provide Metrohm Quality Service to customers in a manner that maximizes contribution, efficiency and benefit.

Can you provide information to our readers about the latest product you have presented to the sector? What technology and features does this product have?

Metrohm is the global market leader in titration analytical instruments and sets sector milestones through both technological innovation and product quality. In this context, the OMNIS Platform, first launched and announced in 2016, now leads a brand new technological shift in the sector with ever-increasing momentum and represents the next generation of titrimetric technologies whose standards were previously set by Metrohm itself. OMNIS offers a user-centric modular platform - always and at every level. Configured initially with a single OMNIS Titrator, this system provides a platform that allows you to build your analysis system gradually over the base module at any time and according to your requirements. Thus, you need not worry about whether your system will meet your future needs. There is no device model concept on the OMNIS platform. The base titrator has a modular design that allows custom configuration of any titration methodology, measurement type and capacity expansion requirement. All features that might be requested by the user can be easily integrated into the system either at the initial purchase stage or in the future through functional licenses and/or additional components (measurement inputs, burettes, modules, accessories, etc.). The OMNIS platform also introduces entirely new standards to the sector regarding reactant safety and traceability. Thanks to Metrohm's new patented OMNIS Liquid Adapter technology, risks of accidental contact with liquid in the bottle during reactant changes are minimized, and for the first time in the sector, traceability is guaranteed 100% through integrated RFID technology-compatible reactant options sourced directly from reactant manufacturers and compatible with the OMNIS Liquid Adapter. In contrast to conventional analysis systems, the OMNIS platform works sample-centric. This means that all measured parameters related to the sample being analyzed (for example, acidity, chloride, vitamin C, etc.) can be displayed directly as sub-analyses related to the main sample itself in a single database. OMNIS truly puts the sample at the center of your laboratory work.

The OMNIS platform is also designed to rapidly increase sample processing capacity whenever needed to meet the growing number of analyses in the laboratory.

It is possible to fully automate analyses by integrating the OMNIS Sample Robot into the existing system, which uses laboratory bench space much more efficiently compared to conventional disk-type sample changers. You can start small with the OMNIS Sample Robot S and then increase your system's capacity as needed. When you require maximum automation, you can upgrade your OMNIS Sample Robot to size L, creating a system capable of simultaneously analyzing four different parameters on up to 175 samples at once. That is what we call true flexibility and time savings! OMNIS is also not limited to titrimetric technologies alone and forms the foundation for a complete analytical platform where all Metrohm measurement technologies will be harmonized and brought together in the near future.

Please tell us about Metrohm's sustainability and corporate social responsibility activities.

As Metrohm Turkey, within the framework of our brand's 75th anniversary celebration this year, we held quite a colorful anniversary celebration with our customers. More than 150 customers from all over Turkey gathered in Istanbul and spent an extraordinary gala evening full of surprises and entertainment at Feriye Palace-Ortaköy. We extend our thanks again to all our customers who honored us with their participation. In addition to these celebrations, in honor of Bertold Suhner, a young and promising engineer who laid the foundations of the Metrohm company 75 years ago, and to honor this innovative spirit and its power to shape the world, we organized a competition called the Metrohm Young Chemist Award 2018. The Metrohm Young Chemist Award 2018 Competition takes place simultaneously in all countries where Metrohm subsidiaries operate, including Turkey, and aims to recognize and reward young scientists from around the world and their work aimed at contributing to humanity. The Turkish leg of the competition, which has been ongoing since the beginning of 2018, concluded last August, and Gözde Kabay, who participated with her research on "Production of Amyloid-based Biocatalytic Membrane by Electrospinning Method and Electrochemical Analysis of Enzyme Activity" within TOBB University of Economics and Technology Institute of Natural Sciences Department of Biomedical Engineering, earned the title of "2018 Metrohm Young Chemist Turkey" and a special monetary award worth USD 4,000.

Gözde Kabay received her award in a ceremony held at the new Metrohm Turkey Istanbul Headquarters.

Gözde Kabay also earned the right to participate in the global final competition organized by Metrohm-Switzerland and held among all Metrohm Young Chemist Award winners worldwide. The results of this competition will be announced at the end of 2018.

What innovations would you like to implement in the coming years? What advantages will these innovations bring to Metrohm and your customers?

As I mentioned above, at Metrohm we believe that spectroscopic techniques will hold a significant share in both laboratory and in-process technologies in the near future. In this direction, over the past 5 years, Metrohm Turkey Group has made quite significant investments in near-infrared and Raman spectroscopy fields. In this context, we have incorporated into our organization Innovative Photonic Solutions (IPS), which is the world's largest producer of Raman spectroscopy diode-based light components, Diagnostic an- SERS, a surface-printed SERS substrate manufacturer, and most recently B&W Tek, a producer of Raman, LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy), near-infrared and UV/Vis spectrometer solutions. With innovations we will add to our spectroscopy product portfolio in the near future, we plan to provide our customers with more comprehensive and versatile solutions. Our main objective at this point is to offer our customers precise, accurate and efficient system options that respond quickly to their measurement requirements.