Digital Transformation Process Continues at Full Speed

Digital Transformation Process Accelerating Turkey ranks among early-moving countries in rapidly adopting the Industry 4.0 process in manufacturing. The digital transformation process, the first step of this transition, is progressing swiftly across Turkish industry. While early successes in digital transformation were frequently visible in high-revenue sectors such as energy and automotive, this transformation is now distinctly manifest across all sectors today. In production, autonomous vehicle systems, the first phase of this transformation, are being implemented extensively.  

Özgün Yabalak, Chief Executive Officer of ZGN Otonom & Robotik, a domestic startup offering solutions in autonomous operation systems, made the following comments regarding the future of autonomous vehicle use in Turkey:

"Turkey has always maintained its conviction that many tedious and difficult processes that have persisted for years and sought solutions can be resolved quickly and easily through Industry 4.0. Looking at the investments made in the industrial sector in recent years, we can say that our manufacturers have approached this matter positively, particularly following the pandemic impact. To be realistic, before us, autonomy applications with existing solutions were implemented within a very narrow framework in Turkey and found very limited application opportunities in the sector. This situation had led to a prejudiced approach against autonomous vehicles throughout the sector. Over the past two years, with ZGN Otonom ve Robotik's active presence in the autonomous vehicle field and its demonstration of itself with numerous applications in the sector, companies began to see ZGN's advanced autonomous operation solutions, which helped change the situation in our favor. With the pandemic's impact as well, we clearly saw how important unmanned operations are, especially for the manufacturing sector. In 2019, while 10 autonomous vehicles were preferred against 500 manually operated industrial transport vehicles, this ratio has now reached 70 autonomous vehicles preferred against 300 manually operated industrial transport vehicles. The gap is narrowing further each day. For this reason, according to market research conducted, by 2028, the preference for autonomous vehicle use will be on par with manual vehicle preference in many more sectors such as warehousing-logistics, manufacturing, food, steel, durable consumer goods, and secondary industry. Toward 2040, manual vehicles appear to be used only in work dependent on geographical and field conditions, mainly in open-area operations. Autonomous vehicles whose prototypes and trials are ongoing continue intensively in mining and construction sectors in particular. Additionally, research on autonomous vehicles for loading and unloading trucks and tractors in all weather conditions remains at the forefront of ongoing studies."