Could you please introduce yourself?
We are a company established in Eskişehir OIZ 21st Street in 2007 to produce metal sheet parts as a supplier for the white goods and automotive sectors. In the last 5 years, we produce embedded cookers and hoods for global companies as ODM. We are established on an area of 36.000 m² and employ 230 people.

Could you tell us about Esalba and its operations?
As for the metal parts production, we make vibration isolators and cable / hose retainers as tier 2 for the automotive sector and generally conveyor parts, drum parts and door hinges as tier 1 for the white goods sector. We ship these products to different locations in 9 distinct countries.

Also, embedded cookers and hoods we manufacture for our customers under their brand name are sold to about 20 countries.

Which sectors do you provide service with?
White goods, automotive, heating and ventilation are among the main sectors we produce goods for.

Could you tell us about your export rates and which countries do you export the most?
70% of our production is shipped to Britain, France, Spain, Russia, Romania, Italy, and Tunisia.

What distinguishes you from your competitors?
Our openness to innovations, young and dynamic team, our effort to closely follow technological developments and implement them in all our processes, advanced Machine Park, and implementing our automotive management system infrastructure in all the product groups distinguish us from our competitors.

Could you tell us about your new investments and R&D projects? Do you have an R&D Strategy?
Our R&D Center was approved in June 2017. We set our R&D strategies for the short-, medium-, and long-run. Our short-term goal is to spread the R&D culture in the organization, to develop projects that have a potential for export in our production capacity and to have patents, utility models and publications our of them.

In the medium-term, we aim to become capable of developing R&D projects and making products for advanced technology sectors, while in the long-term we plan to increase our added value to the 10$ level in kg.

We congratulate you for having your R&D recently approved by the Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology and considering you a good example for our members, we would like to ask you questions on the process.

What was your motive for making the decision?
Esalba aims to produce high added value products and to increase its exports. We are aware that we can attain our goals only by creating innovations and staying competitive. While deciding to become an R&D Center, our goal was to increase the quality of our personnel by the university-industry cooperation, to create a medium for them to come up with ideas freely, and to create projects that are original and that can add value. While deciding on projects to conduct in our R&D Center, we make sure they are projects that can bring patents and licenses to the company. A part of our projects is for increasing efficiency, thus our competitive power. It always takes us one step forward to provide our customers with original projects and efficiency-boosting solutions.

In order to achieve this successful outcome, where do you start first? (Institutions to apply?)
You should start first by analyzing your current status: If your current physical infrastructure, the number and qualifications of your personnel, and ongoing projects fulfill the criteria for establishing an R&D Center, the application and evaluation process is finalized in only 1 month. In order to become an R&D Center, you need to apply to the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. You can contact the Public University Industry Cooperation Committee in your region and the Provincial Directorate of Industry and benefit from the support provided by these institutions. Also, in order to find the right adviser academics from the relevant departments of universities for your projects, you can contact the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) that function to enable this coordination. Eskişehir Osmangazi University’s TTO “ETTOM” and Anadolu University’s TTO “Arinkom” provide this kind of support to companies.

What kind of a company infrastructure is required? Does anyone who says “I want to become an R&D Center” receive acceptance and become successful?
There are 3 fundamental conditions: Employing 15 full-time R&D personnel, R&D study areas controlled by cameras and card systems and ongoing projects that are qualified as R&D projects. After fulfilling these conditions, you present the necessary application documents to the Ministry and submit your application. However, becoming an R&D center is possibly the easiest part. What is more important is sustainability. That is why you need to have a corporate culture that will continuously support the development of your personnel. The investments made in laboratories and research tools, license expenses for the respective software, and service purchasing and counseling expenses as a part of coordination with the university are the basic expenditures of the projects in the R&D Center. In short, it is a long journey and it takes patience. Therefore, I would recommend those companies that consider establishing an R&D center to assess “sustainability.”

Which incentive mechanisms have you benefited from and in what rates?
The companies that have an R&D Center benefit from certain tax immunity advantages from Corporate Tax, Income Tax, Stamp Tax and SSI employer premium. These are what we benefit from.

How did you benefit from having an R&D Center? What short- and long-term benefits are you expecting?
Although it has been a fairly short time, our capability to create and manage projects has increased. Our completed projects include those with cost-cutting output. We started to implement these projects and they are very useful. In this process, we provided foreign language education to our demanding personnel to increase their English skills, strived to increase the qualifications of our personnel via project management training and various other technical and personnel development trainings and have already started to gain benefits in our work.

From the very start to the establishment stage, I believe that company employees have important duties, responsibilities and busy schedules. Could you tell us more on those?
Our R&D Manager has led the process from the establishment stage till today. The support of the management and that they make their organization see how much they care is very important in the process of becoming an R&D Center to make sure the entire R&D personnel participates and to create an R&D culture. That is why we provided our whole support. We implement the matrix organization model in our center. Based on the projects, we decide on the project leaders and project teams, thus aiming to gather the most suitable team for that project.

How was 2017 for your sector and what are your forecasts for 2018?
In 2017, we added 2 new customers in our portfolio and increased our product range for the current customers and earned 60% growth. Most importantly, we managed to sustain our profitability while growing. With the contract we signed with a customer who purchased embedded cookers from the Far East until this year, we contributed greatly in the national economy, which we are proud of.

For 2018, we are estimating about 30% growth. The figures for the first 5 months are great. We think that the slump in the markets these days will pass as of July.

How do you evaluate the Industry 4.0 developments in Turkey? Does Esalba conduct any preliminary works and take precautions?
While thinking that Industry 4.0 in Turkey is not yet in the place it should be, we see that it has recently started to gain momentum. Dwelling on application examples and their contributions in the businesses during awareness trainings attracts the attention of industrialists. That only Industry 4.0-compatible companies will be able to stand in the sector in the next years is a triggering force.

Esalba Metal invests in digital data collection and processing starting from the production stages.

We work on non-human-dependent AGV and automatic storing and stacking solutions in storage and shipping operations. Our main goal is to shorten the process from the order to the shipping.

What are your thoughts and expectations of BEYSAD?
We closely follow BEYSAD’s activities. Thanks to its publications, we are informed about the developments in the sector and the operations of other members. With the fair trips organized, we learn about international developments and are able to start working on the applicability of new technologies in our own business. We would like to thank the BEYSAD management and employees for their support.