Our "Digital Transformation of SMEs in Turkey with the Establishment of an Industry 4.0 Center of Excellence" project, which BEYSAD, Özyeğin University and TÜSİAD are the beneficiaries, financed within the framework of the financial cooperation of the European Union and the Republic of Turkey and supported within the scope of the Competitive Sectors Program carried out by the Ministry of Industry and Technology is progressing.

The first event of the project, "Sectoral Insights and Roadmap in Digital Transformation Workshop" was held on October 20, 2022 at Özyeğin University-BEYSAD (OZUBEX) Center of Excellence in Istanbul with the participation of approximately 100 people. The event was attended by survey participants from BEYSAD members, company officials that took part in the SIRI evaluation, main industry and other BEYSAD stakeholders.

The program started with the opening speech of Prof. Dr. Tanju Erdem, Özyeğin University Vice Rector. In his speech, Erdem expressed his satisfaction with the project as Özyeğin University, as well as the work of Özyeğin University, and the processes that have been completed so far.

“Since January 2022, we have been actively working on the services to be provided by the center, focusing on training, consultancy, R&D services and supporting innovative ideas, especially on digital transformation.  At this point, I would like to announce with pleasure that we have started our activities with the vision of playing an important role in maintaining the global competitiveness of the sector.

Our university is among the top 10 universities in Turkey in national and international rankings that evaluate universities in terms of research, education and cooperation with industry. This Center is an important indicator of the value OzU places on cooperation with industry.

We encourage our professors in all faculties of our university to cooperate with the industry.  Moreover, we have made it a part of our instructors' performance evaluations that they turn their research into practice. I hope you will have the opportunity to meet our professors closely during this workshop and in the upcoming days. In case you have problems to be solved by research, you can create joint projects with our professors.”

Afterwards, the program continued with his speech of BEYSAD Chairman Ş. Burak Özaydemir. Özaydemir shared the process that has taken place since the beginning of the project.

“With our central work, we have focused on the Industry 4.0 Transformation, which has entered our country's agenda since 2016, with the important contributions of TUSIAD, within the scope of our aim to make our country a White Goods Production and Technology center. Thanks to the global scale and deep supply chain of our industry in our country, we anticipated that this transformation could be critical for the sector and exemplary nationally, and we planned our work in this direction.

When the European Union opened its new term calls in 2016 within the scope of the Competitive Sectors program carried out by the Ministry of Industry within the scope of IPA program, our Board of Directors took a decision to apply for a project, seeing the compatibility of the program with our sector and Association objectives. Our application for the “Digital Transformation of SMEs in Turkey with the Establishment of an Industry 4.0 Competence Center” with a budget of approximately 10 million Euros, which we created in cooperation with Özyeğin University and TÜSİAD, received project approval at the end of 2017, and official signatures were made at the beginning of 2018. After the intensive preliminary work of our project, the tender processes started in 2020 and a significant number of equipment from the completed tenders has been delivered to OZUBEX. The technical support tender, which consists of experts who will support the establishment of our center and the development of its infrastructure, was completed at the end of 2021, and the team, which won the tender at the beginning of 2022, started its consultancy work intensively. Our work will continue until the end of 2024 in order to deepen and enrich the content and scope of my center with the deep experience of the technical consultancy team.  We aim to make the official opening of our Center in the first half of 2023, with the delivery of our equipment, for which the tender process has begun.

We anticipate that our center will respond comprehensively to the consultancy, training, pilot project and research needs of the sector, thanks to its extensive physical infrastructure, competent staff and the knowledge to be obtained from the competent international expert team that will work within the scope of the project, and will reduce the obstacles to transformation. With the equipment infrastructure of the center, use scenarios, engineering studies and pilot projects can be realized on the use of conventional production equipment and new technologies in our sector.  Training and consultancy programs at the center are created with the aim of creating a visible impact on the processes of our stakeholders who will receive service. Thanks to the wide cooperation culture in the sector, the necessary infrastructure will be created for umbrella projects and joint R&D and EU projects within the scope of Digital and Green Transformation under the coordination of the center.”

Next, Arçelik Global Digital Production Techniques Director Haldun Dingeç, Haier Europe Turkey Automation, Digitalization and Energy Manager Onur Yüksel and Vestel White Goods Automation and Projects Development Manager Tolga Özdenli hosted a panel titled “A Glance at Digital Transformation with Main Industry”, moderated by Gözde Karaduman. It was a productive section where experiences and suggestions were shared.

Afterwards, OzUBEX Industrial Transformation Center Director Dr. Erinç Albey talked about OzUBEX with his energetic and informative presentation.

In the following sections, MEXT's Technology Center Group Director, Efe Erdem, who is in the Center consultancy consortium, made an informative presentation on the Digital Evaluation Results with BEYSAD members, and then M. Cengiz Ulubaş made an impressive presentation titled Industry 4.0 Digital Transformation Journey.

After the lunch break, the program started with the “Digital Maturity Assessment” roundtable exercises in different halls, which lasted approximately 1.5 hours. Then a tour of the center was held. During the tour, there was also the opportunity to receive feedback from the participants regarding the equipment and the details of the services provided at the equipment stations. This section attracted the attention of the participants.

We would like to thank all our members and stakeholders for their participation and contributions.