Dear BEYSAD Readers, 

In this issue we have made an interview with a distinguished manager whose wide experience can be used by all market players. We would like to extend our profuse thanks to Dr. Jörg Ulrich, BSH Turkey Dishwasher Director and BSH Ev Aletleri’s Executive Board Member in charge of Technique, for sparing his time for this interview as well as to his colleagues who have helped us contact them in an efficient manner. BSH is a leading white goods manufacturer in the Turkish market with its Bosch, Siemens, Profilo and Gaggenau brands and Mr. Ulrich has assumed different roles in countries where BSH is active and has been working successfully in Turkey since 2006. Mr. Ulrich has been popular in the Turkish press due to his remarkable performance in the establishment of the new dishwasher plant in Çerkezköy in 12 months. Married with four children, Dr. Jörg Ulrich continues his career with BSH Ev Aletleri as a CTO and does his best to ensure BSH reaches its objectives with respect to sustainable development, innovation and energy efficiency. 

Dr. Ulrich, would you please tell us about yourself and your career life up until present briefly?

I graduated from Munich Technical University with a master's degree in Physics in 1993 and later I completed my education with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the same university in 1995. 

I started my career as Development Engineer at Siemens and joined BSH in 1999. There, I had the chance to work in different countries. I worked at BSH Home Appliances in Estella, Spain as Project Manager and Head of the Department later on. I continued my career as Product Marketing Manager after I returned to Germany in 2001. I came to Turkey in 2006 to take up the position of Factory Director at BSH Home Appliances’ factory located at Cerkezkoy. We executed very successful works with our team here. 

At the moment, I continue my career as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at BSH Ev Aletleri with lots of passion and love.  

As far as I can see, you have experienced a considerably consistent rising at BSH Family and you established dishwasher production facility at Cerkezkoy in 12 months, which is a pretty short time. What is the secret behind this success story? Would you please talk about your work method and your principals?

Establishment of the new dishwasher production facility at Cerkezkoy Factory of BSH Home Appliances increased production capacity of the factory to 800,000 units in three years. This was really a serious success accomplished with the synergy created by the entire team. There was also a serious increase in the company's exports and employment rate as natural result of the increase in production capacity of the factory. I can say the disciplined environments I've grown up within and the attention I've paid to team work have had great advantages that reflected to my career.  

Would you please give us some information respecting Turkish Vision of BSH? Where does Turkey's BSH stand with respect to BSH Family?

Turkey carries great importance for BSH as the technologies produced and developed in Turkey represent BSH in the entire world. BSH Turkey facilities form an example for all of our factories in the world in the context of production system management. When we study BSH Turkey of 5 years ago, the fact that BSH Turkey has accomplished a consistent growth rate of 10% in production units since 2005 is really a great success.  

Cerkezkoy is the largest production facility of BSH in the world. We operate in a total of 450 thousand meters square area including 220 thousand meters square of indoor area. The new dishwashers to be produced in Cerkezkoy for the first time in our group and the A++ and A+++ class refrigerators to be presented to the entire world only from this facility are important indicators of BSH Turkey's success. 

How do you evaluate the position of white appliances' sector in Turkey?

When we analyze the sector, we notice that Turkey owns an enormous market with respect to white appliances. The positive trends in the Turkish economy also affected the white appliances' sector. Increase in consumer's confidence and expenditures, ongoing stability and commencement of investments in real estate all over again in 2010, resulted in a strong growth rate of 8% for the sector, which had shrank 3% in 2009. 

Turkey has a very attractive position as a country with respect to white appliances considering well qualified labor force, closeness to developing markets and its developed side industries. 

What is the reason of vast amount of investments in Turkey by BSH from your point of view? Do Turkish suppliers have a positive share of this situation?

Investment of BSH in Turkish operation in this degree has many fundamental reasons. The most important one of these is the stability and growth maintained by Turkish economy. Another advantageous factor respecting white appliances in Turkey alongside its strong position is the young population of Turkey and the transformation in to nuclear family. On the other side, BSH is naturally increasing its investments in Turkey due to geographic position of Turkey, because it is located in a region that is very susceptible for export. 

Certainly, our suppliers have a positive share of this process. The amount of purchases in 2010 is half inside the country and half abroad. We purchase from about 500 companies in Turkey. Our target is to increase purchases from local suppliers so, we have been developing many projects in this regard. 

Would you please tell us about long term goals of BSH? Would you please also inform us about the new product range projects to facilitate new developments in your supplier industry?

We predict that Turkey will play a strong and an important role in global organization in long term with great investments in BSH Turkey in years to come. We produce products with highest quality for Europe, America and Middle East at Cerkezkoy, which is the largest production facility of BSH Group. We finally develop and produce all of our products in Turkey and export them to the entire world. We continue consistent investment in our facilities and new product projects in Turkey due to the confidence in Turkey. 

One of our next important steps will be commencement of production of small home appliances at Cerkezkoy. Our goal is to help our country accomplish an attractive standing with regard to small home appliances similar to its standing with respect to large home appliances. 

I know that BSH pays lots of attention to sustainable development, innovation and energy productivity. Would you please give us some information on new developments in this regard?

Sustainable development and energy productivity are subjects that we as BSH work on and pay lots of attention to. We reduce all negative factors in our facilities and products from day to day using our environmentalist mission, which is the central point of our sustainable development and production vision, while investing in our long term success and providing possibility of using the technology securely and safely by our consumers. 

If we study the last 15 years, BSH has been capable of reducing energy consumption in its refrigerators by about 74%, washing machines 57%, dishwashers 48% and ovens 37%. Besides, BSH provides almost %50 water saving in washing machines and %70 in dishwashers. In this way, BSH will continue to add value to the sector with its products and production processes that honor the environment. Zeolite technology is the greatest discovery of BSH in this field... Using this technology, BSH was able to present dishwasher with 30% higher energy productivity than closest competitor in its own class to the market in Turkey. Natural mineral Zeolite that reduces energy consumption (A-20%) reduces washing periods and facilitates better drying at the same time. Thanks to this technology, we were first honored with Innovation Award for Climate and Environment held by Germany's Ministry of Environment in collaboration with Germany's Federation of Industry in 2010 and then this was followed by 2010 Utopia Award on behalf of Utopia.de, which is an online platform. 

Would you please tell us about your Research & Development activities?

We took the position of one of the most important role players of BSH Group's global Research & Development network thanks to our intensive activities in Research and Development field and we became the third most important country after Germany and China. Particularly, we received the first Research & Development Center certificate in Turkey in the month of February with BSH's Research & Development Center established at Cerkezkoy region, which has taken great steps in Research & Development area.  

Our target, as BSH, is to increase our Research & Development activities every year. At this moment, our independent Research & Development Center has 137 employees. Our target is to increase the number of our Research & Development employees to 200 individuals after we implement our plans to expand the facility. 

Innovation is a necessary part of creating technology for BSH Group that puts its signature under 3 patented discoveries every day... In this direction, BSH, which is the founder of the first Research & Development Center in Turkey, exports innovational products with patented technologies developed in our country to global markets. 

Transferring new technologies to products that respond to customer expectations by consuming less water and energy is a strategy that we have sustained with determination. On the one hand, we will run our Research and Development activities at full speed to develop products that are socially, environmentally and economically beneficial and valuable for our consumers and on the other hand we will push forward sustainable production limits. Our greatest goal is to protect our leadership in this area. 

What are your views and expectations of BEYSAD? What can we do for you, as Turkish supplier industries, to help localize your supplies even further?

We shape our growth as BSH Turkey together with our supply base. In this regard, we expect our suppliers, who are a member of BEYSAD, to produce the products according to our needs. This includes joint development as well as flexibility and quality requirements.  Not only growth of both economy and market will take place in this way but also development of supplier industries.