As a part of our Strategy Certificate efforts, in an activity organized by the R&D and Innovation Committee, out of five committees established to undertake actions so as to fulfill our objectives, BSH Tekirdağ - ÇerkezköyCampus R&D Center was visited on March 11, 2014 Tuesday by approximately 85 members and BSH representatives. Followingpresentations performed in a general meeting hall, BEYSAD Chairman Mr. Bahadır Balkır gave a closing and thanks speech. During his speech, Bahadır Balkır invited BEYSAD Vice Chairman Hasan Danişment to the stage to present a plaquet and BSH Purchasing Director Martin Seidel was awarded with a “Plaquet of Gratitude”. Secondly, Bahadır Balkır this time invited BEYSAD Board Member and R&D and Innovation Committee Head Burak Özaydemir to the stage and BSH R&D Director Horst-Anton Werkman was presented a “Plaquet of Gratitude”.

In the meeting that started in the morning, firstly BSHPurchasing DirectorMartin Seidel gave a presentation regarding BSH Turkey and the general structure and expressed their satisfaction due to this visit paid by BEYSAD members.

Later, Technology and Innovation Manager Murat Yücel did an informative presentation on the projects held as a part of university-industry cooperation. The presentation was very effective and successful. In this presentation titled “Corporate Technology,” we learned that opportunities for incentives are followed in every country under the international framework established by BSH. This framework also conducts activities to increase cooperation with research organizations and universities. For instance, there is a building of two floors inside the School of Mechanical Engineering of Istanbul Technical University which can be an attraction center for academics and students (decorated in a way to enable them pass time and socialize), and whose second floor has offices where students who work in the industry-university projects under BSH can work at school.

In order to enhance this framework, BSH removed trainee positions and instead train as new recruits and employ students in summer, who are hosted in hotels in Çerkezköy and each student works in a project assigned in the company and under the supervision of a senior engineer. These projects continue as part time within the academic year. The projects are spread to include academics and laboratories in the schools and a synergy is created. Currently BSH carries on cooperating with not only ITU, but also Sabancı, METU, BAU, YTU, TOBB, Özyeğin and Bilkent Universities. Same activities are carried out in other BSH campuses around the world and in summer groups of students are brought to visit campuses in other countries and thus, giving them opportunity to build an international network and to benefit from benchmarking activities.

The presentation given by Mr. Werkman regarding Cooler businesses and the presentation given by Emrah Torun on oven businesses included general information on the organizational structure of the relevant businesses in the world, employee roles and communications as well as the number of projects performed in the last 4 years.

Following the presentations, a QA was done and questions in mind were asked to relevant people. The members were observed to be quite intrigued in this area.

After this section, laboratories established in the fridge development center and where competence for fridges is tested as per local and international norms were toured in groups.

Next, following lunch, the program ended.

After the program, all the members and BSH representatives were observed to be quite satisfied. These types of visits enabled each of us to gain different visions thanks to the fact that questions are asked and answered and also, that success stories written can be estimated after what stages they are written. We think that if such visits are paid to as many number of diverse companies will open the way for our suppliers.

We would like to thank first of all BSH Purchasing unit managers Martin Seidel and Ulaş Özen as well as R&D Director Mr. Werkman for all his support and efforts in making this organization possible.

Moreover, we would like to extend our gratitude to our members for their great interest and the members of the R&D Capacity Development and Innovation Committee before the Committee Head Mr. Burak Özaydemir.